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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

A HISTORY OF MODERN EDUCATION 

An account of educational opinion and practice from 
the revival of learning to the present decade. 

IGino., pp. 481, $1.50. 

IN PEE 8 8 
A HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EDUCATION 



H 



HISTOR! OF AEIIT EDUCATIOI 



AN ACCOUNT OP THE 



COURSE OF EDUCATIONAL OPINION AND PRACTICE FROM 

THE EARLIEST PERIODS OF WHICH WE HAVE RELIABLE 

RECORDS TO THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 



SAMUEL G. WILLIAMS, Ph.D. 

Late Professor of the Science and Art of Teaching in Cornell University 




3 J J ^ 3 



SYRACUSE, N. Y. 

C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 



Copyright, 1903, by Mrs. Florence W. Gushing 



-^ • 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS,. 

Two Copies Received 

jUN 10 1903 

T Copyright tntty 
^LASS CI. XXc. No 

4> / ^ X g- 

COPY B. 



.NiA 



PREFACE 

This book grew out of the lectures given by the 
author in Cornell University, and comprises the first 
half of his course on the history of education. 

It is believed that it will meet with the same favor 
so generously accorded to his History of Modern 
Education. 



CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION 

PAGES 

Education the embodiment of ideals of life. — In- 
timate relations with civilization 17-30 

CHAPTER I 

The ancestral ideal. — China and Japan — Lao-tse — 

Confucius — Educational views of Tschu-li 31-49 

CHAPTER II 
Oaste education, India. — The monastic ideal — Buddh- 
ism 50-56 

CHAPTER III 
Egypt. — Priestly education — Idea of immortality and of 

a righteous retribution 57-72 

CHAPTER IV 
Persia. — Warlike education — Life a struggle of good 
with evil — Phoenicia — Industrial education for a rov- 
ing and trading career 73-85 

CHAPTER V 
The Hebrews. — Theocratic education — God and His 
laws supreme — Education before and after the Baby- 
lonian captivity 86-94 

CHAPTER Yl 
Greek education for citizenship. — Sparta — aristocrat- 
ic — Warlike education by the state and severed from 
the family 95-106 

CHAPTER VII 
Athens. — Education for taste as well as citizenship — its 

system 107-115 

(11) 



12 THE HISTORY OF ANCIE:N^T EDUCATION 

PAGES 

CHAPTER VIII 

Athens. — Means of education, music, and gymnastics — 
wide comprehension of term music — use of literature 
— purpose of gymnastics — methods used in education . 116-129 

CHAPTER IX 

Higher education in Athens. — Rise of the university 
system with the philosophers — The School of Athens 
— University customs, freedom of teaching and 
learning 130-140 

CHAPTER X 

Pythagoras and his educational experiment at 

Crotona 141-152 

CHAPTER XI 

Socrates and his method. — Its positive and negative 

phases — Educational views of Socrates 153-164 

CHAPTER XII 

Plato and his educational ideas. — The Republic — 
Communistic education of classes selected on merit — 
Principles for selection of literature for youth — The 
Laws, compulsory education, means of elementary 
education 165-175 

CHAPTER XIII 

Aristotle and his educational ideas. — Progressive 
education — education by the state — limitation of gym- 
nastics — what is illiberal — emphasis on music 176-1 8S 

CHAPTER XIV 
Roman education. — Utilitarian purpose — Static period 
to the time of Cato — Cato as an example of the old 
Roman educators 187-200' 

CHAPTER XV 

Roman education. — Dynamic period influenced by 
Grecian ideas and studies — Means and text-books 
used 201-221 



COI^TENTS • 13 

PAGES 

CHAPTER XVI 
Roman educational organization.— Elementary 
schools and studies — Schools of rhetoric and imperial 
encouragement of schools of philosophy — of juris- 
prudence — of medicine 222-233 

CHAPTER XVII 
Educational views of eminent Romans. — Cicero — 
Varro — Seneca — Quintilian — Plutarch, the Greco-Ro- 
man 234-261 

CHAPTER XVIII 
Pedagogic contributions from antiquity of perma- 
nent VALUE 262-272 



ANCIENT EDUCATION 



THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



mTRODUCTIOX 

I propose to discuss the history of educational efforts 
and educational ideas among those peoples with which 
our own progress is most intimately connected, from 
the earliest periods of which we have any reliable 
records, down to the times in which we ourselves are 
actors. This is a most interesting and suggestive 
branch of historic study, since it not only reveals to 
us the efforts of the historic races at various epochs to 
fit their offspring to fill successfully the places they 
were destined in the course of nature to occupy in 
society and in the State, but also brings us into the 
most vital contact with the controlling ideas of these 
races, — with their ideals of life and conduct, with 
their views of human progress, human perfection, and 
human destiny. 

This discussion has then, merely to consider to what 
ends, by what means, through what agencies, and with 
material appliances and organizations, various peoples 
have striven to train the young for their future destina- 
tion, and what have been the results of these efforts, 
as disclosed in the character, the career, and the fate 
of nations; it will also demand that we analyze and 
weigh the opinions that have been expressed during 
the ages by the world's wisest and best men, as to the 

(17) 



18 THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

ideas that should control, the aims that should be pro- 
posed, and the means that should be used in the edu- 
cation of youth, which they have all considered a 
supreme object of human interest. 

A thoughtful review of educational efforts should 
be replete to us with warning and with instruction; — 
with warning against the renewal of experiments which 
experience has shown to be ineffective or even hurtful, 
and with instruction in regard both to the aims which 
should always consciously inspire the efforts of the 
educator, and the spirit in which he should use the 
means, transmitted by the past or afforded by the 
present, in training the young for a higher destiny 
than their fathers have attained. 

So also an intelligent comparison of the views of the 
philosophic theorists of education may enable us to 
detect their fundamental points of agreement, amidst 
many apparent divergences in matters of detail; to 
discover what among their opinions were the result of 
peculiar views of life or of special social and political 
relations, and so were in their very nature temporary 
and transient; and what, on the other hand, have 
referen^je to universal man, whatever may be his cir- 
cumstances, and hence are likely to be as permanent 
as human nature itself . We may thus be enabled to 
approximate by a historic road to a science of educa- 
tion, — to what may indeed be termed a philosophy of 
educational ideas and processes. 

For the science of education is in a very real sense 
a historic science. It is the expression of the harmony 
that man has attained with his physical, social, and 
spiritual environment, and its history is the depiction 



IXTRODUCTIOK 19 

of man's ever-renewed and progressive efforts after 
harmony with this three-fold environment. Only 
through a knowledge of these efforts and of their in- 
spiring ideas shall we be in a condition to appreciate 
fully our present stage of human elevation in all these 
respects, to understand by what means and through 
what vicissitudes this stand-point has been reached, 
and to judge more intelligently along what lines our 
future struggles towards the perfection of our nature 
should be made. 

It is obvious that man's earliest efforts to adjust 
himself to his environment must take the direction of 
what Herbert Spencer calls direct or indirect self- 
preservation. He must learn to conform his actions 
to the most obtrusive physical forces and laws; to 
avail himself of the material resources of surrounding 
nature; to bring some rude kind of mutuality into his 
relations with his fellow men. These earliest efforts, 
renewed through long ages, and marked by brutal 
struggles and rude but progressive inventions, natur- 
ally could leave no trace on the pages of history, for 
they were the efforts of unlettered barbarians. 

We may, however, be sure that whatever progress 
was slowly made, whether physical or social, was care- 
fully transmitted to the young of the race by word of 
mouth and by early training. This was the primitive 
form of education, and is the form which still prevails 
amongst savage tribes. The youth are trained to prac- 
tise the arts which their parents know, to continue 
their friendships and alliances, and to cherish their 
resentments. Thus when history begins to emerge 
from the mists of fable and tradition, a great advance 



20 THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

has already been made in physical and social adjust- 
ments, accompanied by some dim recognition of the 
fact that man has himself a worth apart from his sur- 
roundings, — that indeed his spiritual nature itnparts a 
higher meaning, if not to his physical at least to his 
social relations. 

History has naturally given its chief attention to 
man's struggles to adapt himself to social conditions 
and exigencies. It is a record of wars that were 
waged and of alliances that were formed or dissolved, 
of the changes wrought in societies and races by the 
agency of masterful spirits, of the rise and decline of 
States, of dynasties, and of policies, — all facts in the 
social order, — through which we catch only occasional 
and, as it were, chance glimpses of man's slowly- 
increasing dominion over physical nature, and of the 
struggles of his spiritual being for a fuller expression 
and a nobler life. It is only within the latest genera- 
tions that science has, by its rapid development, forced 
history to record the brilliant story of man's swift 
■conquests of physical nature by obedience to her 
deeper laws, and of his successful repetition of efforts, 
often before made, to raise himself nearer to the full 
perfection of his nature. 

In all man's earlier efforts, mostly in a blind fashion, 
after a completer harmony with his physical and social 
environment, and in his blinder gropings after some 
expansion of his spiritual nature, the education that 
has been given to the young has played a most impor- 
tant part, but one too often well-nigh unnoted. We 
shall see in the course of our inquiry that the Chinese, 
the Egyptians, the Hebrews, and the Greeks earliest 



INTRODUCTIOIir 21 

exhibit some consciousness of the great truth on which 
the modern nations are but recently beginning to act, 
that whatever you desire to make greatly influential in 
a nation's life, you must first incorporate in the edu- 
cation of a nation's youth. So important is this truth, 
that in the words of Leibnitz, " Change the system of 
education and you will change the face of the world." 

In the progress of our discussion, we shall have 
occasion to see the influence of great Ideas in shaping 
the world's progress; that what to-day exists only in 
idea may to-morrow be translated into fact, though 
that to-morrow may be ages distant; that yiqw and 
fruitful ideas, originate from the world's wisest and 
greatest men; and heaice, that social and individual 
progress, with its correlative educational progress, is 
a progress that always receives its impulse from above, 
from the men of ideas, and works thence downwards 
until it penetrates the whole relatively unintelligent 
and unprogressive mass below. 

Man's ideas as to which the deepest essence of his 
nature is, and what are its most vital relations to the 
facts of its environment, have always profoundly 
modified the character of the education which at any 
time has been given to the young; and necessarily so, 
since that education has been designed to fit the young 
for existing — chiefly social — conditions and require- 
ments. Hence, in the words of Karl Schmidt, " Since 
what man thinks, feels, and wills he desires to realize 
outside of himself, being yet limited in this realization 
to wdiat he himself is and possesses, he can and will 
educate the rising generation according to no other 



22 THE HISTOEY OF EDUCATION 

principles and to no other end than that which he 
considers the highest." 

From this difference of ideas, therefore, which have 
prevailed at different periods as to man's relations to 
what he deems highest, have arisen the several systems 
of education which have prevailed, with their modi- 
fications in form adapting them to the special genius 
of different societies. 

Thus the Oriental peoples and the nations of classi- 
cal antiquity, viewing man's relations to the State as 
the highest, have originated various forms of what 
Eosenkranz terms National Education, fitting the 
young for their relation to that special ideal of the 
State which each people had conceived. 

The Hebrew nation, more truly, conceiving man's 
immediate relation to his Creator as the highest, 
educated for a State in which the revealed will of God 
was the supreme law of life; but in which man's indi- 
vidual importance, and thus his feeling of self-judging 
responsibility, was apt to be dwarfed by that awful 
Presence. This was the type of Theocratic Education. 

Finally, the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, per- 
fect man and Divine nature incarnate, has gradually 
brought the nations of Christendom to a realization 
of the infinite worth of individual man; and of his 
manifold relations to nature and his fellow man, to 
society and the State, as a preparative to that highest 
relation to his Creator, in whom all these relations 
converge and gain their deepest significance. Thus 
has been developed in the progress of the Christian 
centuries the Humanitarian ideal of education. 

In this point of view, the history of education may, 



INTRODUCTION^ 23 

I think, lead us to realize more fully the weighty re- 
sponsibility which this ideal of education in its latest 
and most complete form imposes upon the educator of 
the present and the future. He must, in the words of 
Kant, train the young for a future somewhat higher 
condition of humanity than any that our race has yet 
attained ; or in the idea of Herbart, he must represent 
the wants of the future man in the training of the 
children. 

He must indeed prepare them for the duty of self- 
preservation in the widest meaning of the term, by 
such understanding of the laws of the universe and of 
the means by which man may make them helpful, to 
his purposes, that in the industrial society of the 
future they may become efficient helpers, and not 
dead-weights or clogs. He must also fit them for the 
proper performance of their duties as parents in the 
limited circle of future families, and their duties as 
citizens in the complicated relations of social and 
political life; but above all, he must aid them to attain 
their completest stature as beings intellectual and 
moral, as men self-poised and self-directing, estimating 
all things according to the truest standards of relative 
worth and acting in accordance with such estimates, 
— men really free because the intelligent love of the 
true and right has made them free. 

As may probably have been inferred from what has 
already been said, the relations of education to civiliza- 
tion are exceedingly intimate. Indeed they so act and 
react upon each other that it would be difficult to 
decide which is effect and which cause, — whether edu- 
cation is parent or offspring of civilization. This much 



24 THE HISTOKY OF EDUCATION 

seems certain, that the education of a people, at first 
taking form and color from its dominant ideas, deepens 
and perpetuates the effects of those ideas — as witness 
the Chinese, — and ends by controlling in large measure 
the development of its civilization. Likewise, the 
only effective means to change the current of an ancient 
and perverse national life, is to begin with a corre- 
sponding reformation of the training of the rising 
generation, — as witness in recent years the Japanese, 
who desiring to put themselves in line with the civiliza- 
tion of the West, have begun by reshaping their edu- 
cational means and methods. 

An even more striking example of analogous charac- 
ter is presented by Germany. Fichte was wise in his 
appeal to the German people at their lowest stage of 
political depression early in the j^resent century, in 
pointing them to "the education of the nation", to 
" the training to a wholly we2(;.and general national con- 
sciousness," as their only means of rescue from their 
forlorn condition, and of entering on a new and 
brighter national career. It is needful only to allude 
to the brilliant results, which, within the memory of 
men still living, have attended the adoption of the 
policy that Fichte outlined. A Germany which, from 
" a new and general national consciousness ", has sub- 
stituted union in place of provincial isolation, — a 
renovated Germany in which the uplifting power of 
education is compelled to reach the very humblest of 
her citizens, and all that pertains to education is the 
affair of her very wisest and most experienced minds, 
— is to-day the most powerful nation on earth; her 
heel has been upon the neck of her former oppressor; 



IIS^TKODUCTION 25 

her industries and commerce are stretching forth eager 
hands to grasp the remote regions of the earth; and, 
better than all else, her schools and her system of 
general education have served as models to all progres- 
sive nations, while revealing to them the open secret 
of all swift advance in civilization. 

It seems obvious therefore that no history of civiliza- 
tion which fails to take due account of the educational 
ideas, appliances, and methods of nations at the various 
stages of their progress, can claim to give more than 
a partial and maimed account of their development; 
whilst a history of education will be equally incomplete 
which does not, at every epoch, carefully adjust its 
point of view to the stage of national progress in 
civilization as measured by the development, both of 
society as a whole, and of the individuals of which 
society is made up. For, as the etymology of the 
word may serve to suggest, civilization is a progress 
both of the civitas — the State — towards the perfection 
of social relations and arrangements, and of the indi- 
vidual civis — the citizen — towards the perfection of his 
nature, his faculties and sentiments, his ideas and 
character. We may safely adopt therefore Guizot's 
acute statement that the two facts that constitute 
civilization are social progress and the progress of 
humanity, that is of the great body of individual 
citizens. 

Of these two facts it seems obvious that the fact of 
individual progress in well-being, of individual ad- 
vancement towards perfection, is that which is most 
significant, — that indeed it is the one which conditions 
the other and renders it possible ; but this progress, this 



26 THE HISTOEY OF EDUCATION 

advanceinent, is the fruit of education in the deepest 
and best sense of that vaguely-used term. It is equally 
obvious that the depth and validity of any civilization 
can be truly estimated only by the thoroughness with 
which all social ameliorations and humanitarian devel- 
opments reach and penetrate the masses of the com- 
munity. 

A civilization may easily be very brilliant and yet 
exceedingly superficial. It may exhibit a high degree 
of perfection of social arrangements, the benefits of 
which reach but a very limited class ; it may be adorned 
by many individual examples of refinement and eleva- 
tion of sentiment and of nobility of character; it may 
be made illustrious by a brilliant and enduring litera- 
ture; and yet beneath this shining exterior may seethe 
a vast mass of popular ignorance, superstition, and 
semi-barbarism. The thoughtful student of history 
will unhappily have but too little difficulty in finding 
examples to fit this picture, and he will find also doubt- 
less that the benefits of such a civilization are limited 
to the class to which are opened the advantages of the 
best education at that time attainable. 

When we consider also that great men are likely to 
arise, and new ideas of far-reaching consequence to 
originate in the bosom of a highly progressive society, 
one in which the young are most generally trained in 
the best wisdom of their times, and the germs of 
genius find a kindly soil, — we shall be ready to admit 
that education is the most influential factor in an ad- 
vancing civilization, that its history is in a large sense 
the history of human progress, and that the extension 



IN"TRODrCTIO:N^ 27 

of its blessings is the only sure means to promote the 
development of society and of humanity. 

This important question of the close relation of edu- 
<?ation to civilization, may profitably be observed also 
from another point of view. The prevalence of crime 
and pauperism and the frequently wretched condition 
of the laboring classes, are generally conceded to be 
material blemishes on our most enlightened modern 
States. If then it should appear, as seems now highly 
probable, that crime and pauperism are limited to those 
practically illiterate, in a degree enormously dispropor- 
tioned to their relative numbers; and that every exten- 
sion of the benefits of sound education is attended by 
a diminution of crime and of the most hopeless forrns 
of wretchedness, and by an amelioration of the con- 
dition of laborers, it would afford an additional and 
most weighty evidence of the vital connection of edu- 
cation with individual and social progress, the two 
.great facts of civilization. 

Apart from any investigation of the facts, indeed, 
it would seem intrinsically probable, that a man of 
fair education would be likely as a laborer to be more 
efficient and valuable than one wholly or practically 
illiterate; and that as a man he would be more likely 
to be self-respecting and regardful of the rights of 
others, from an enlightened self-interest if for no 
better reason, and thus less liable to fall into the ranks 
of criminals, or to sink into the slough of pauperism. 
Some recent inquiries in this direction and collations 
of statistics as well as the results of reformatory edu- 
cation tend to confirm, so far as they extend, our a 



28 THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

priori expectations,* and afford striking testimony ot' 
the efficiency of right education in diminishing the 
worst evils of modern civilized society. Hence we- 
shall hardly be deemed rash, in assuming that right 
education is the most weighty influence in promoting 
human progress and civilization, and in carrying with 
us this guiding thought in our studies of the history 
of education. It will doubtless in&pire us to look 
deeper into the inner significance of educational 
efforts, to form a clearer judgment of their tendencies,, 
and to weigh more wisely the value of educational 
theories. 

Bearing ever in mind therefore as a regulative prin- 
ciple the truth that education in its form and spirit is 
the embodiment of certain controlling ideas, and in its 
results is indissolubly linked with the development of 
national civilizations, we shall study first its history in 
some of the most noted societies of the Orient, where 
it was moulded on varying ideals of the relation of 
man to the State. We shall note the development of 
theocratic idea among the Hebrews, and its persistence 
during ages of exile, of dispersion, and of oppression. 
We shall see the educational efforts and theories of 
Greece and Rome, controlled and shaped by the idea of 
man as citizen; and shall observe also the germination 
of the university idea with the great Athenian philoso- 
phers, its extension to Alexandria and other centres of 

* Report of Commissioner of Education, 1893-4, p. xx; 1898-9. pp. 
1249-1343. 

Circulars of Information, U. S. Bureau of Education. 4-1872: 3-1879; 
2-1881. - 

Ibid, Education and Crime 1881. Barnard's American Journal of Edu- 
cation, iii. 667; vi. 311. School Review, iv. 59. 

It would be easy largely to increase these references. 



INTRODUCTION^ 29 

{enlightenment, and its planting at Rome in the later 
.ages of the imperial power. We shall face the early 
efforts at Christian education, cut off deliberately from 
the stores of wisdom accumulated by pagan antiquity, 
aiming solely at preparing men for another world, 
finding refuge in monasteries and cathedrals from the 
disorders of most chaotic ages, and degenerating 
naturally into a blind and narrowing submission to 
mere authority in matters not only intellectual and 
spiritual, but also of observable fact. 

We shall in the twelfth century, witness the brilliant 
rise of great European universities, and their early 
subjection to the fetters of an empty but subtle scho- 
lasticism. We shall see the dawn of that revival of 
learning whose blessings we now share, ushered in by 
a recurrence to the rich but long-neglected treasures 
of heathen literature, and attended by the invention 
of the art of printing — art truly preservative of all 
others, — and by the emancipation of the human mind 
from the bonds of tradition as well in education as in 
religion. 

Who could now pretend to outline in the compass of 
a sentence the successive steps of that vast later prog- 
ress, or even to hint at the services of the great organ- 
izers, the wise educators, the great teaching congrega- 
tions, and the illustrious writers on education, who 
have made the educational annals of the past few cen- 
turies the brightest pages of its history ? Suffices to 
say that their controlling idea has been with ever- 
increasing consciousness humanitarian, and that their 
.aim has been and ,is to sound the very depths of human 



30 THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

society, and to reach the most hidden springs of man's- 
nature. 

It is self-evident that such a study shoukl he of 
absorbing interest. To it therefore let us address our- 
selves in the succeeding pages. 



PART I. ANCIENT EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I 

*ORIEI^TAL EDUCATION — CHINA AND JAPAN 

Oriental civilization and its correlative education 
have, with few exceptions, been characterized by a spirit 
of conservatism whose tendency has been to cause 
all things to settle into fixed customs, unchanging 
ceremonies, and in some cases into narrowly limited 
castes. Among Oriental peoples generally the idea of 
man as a free, self-determining personality has not 
been recognized, and hence the surest foundation for 
the feeling of moral responsibility has been wanting. 

The aim of education has therefore been the inculca- 
tion of maxims and formulas, and habituation to the 
customs of types of external conduct in which the 
popular life was bound up. Man was trained to oblit- 
erate originality, to shun independent initiative, and 
to recoil from any outward act that would bespeak a 
self-centered volition. Hence we find in public life 
unreflecting subordination to recognized authority; 
and in education, unchangeable transmission of social 
and religious maxims which rarely pass from memory 

* The materials for this and the two succeeding chapters have to a great 
e'xtent been selected, condensed, atad arranged to suit my purpose from the 
4th edition of Schmidt's Geschichte der Padagogik, to which have been 
added materials derived from all other available sources of information, 
most of which however have been ransacked by the industrious editors of 
the work just mentioned. 

(31) 



32 HISTORY OF ANCIE:N^T EDLX'ATION 

into the realm of feeling, and mere niechanical rote- 
learning of formulas and prayers which a priestly class, 
embodying all knowledge and spiritual cultivation, has 
prescribed. 

The comparative feebleness of physical organization 
in most oriental peoples dissuades from all avoidable 
activity, and the low development of some of the feel- 
ings which act as goads even to sluggish bodies, affords 
little stimulus to enterprise; so that, unless brought 
into active contact with other races, orientals are apt 
to sink into a state of unprogressive quietude, in which 
" education aims merely to retain the stage of culture 
that has been gained, but not to go beyond it." The 
individual is not to be resultant of his own self-deter- 
mined and imperiously creative intelligence, but the 
creature of external circumstances, of birth, of for- 
tune, of social customs, which he feels no promptings 
to fashion to independent personal ends. 

In such societies, it is obvious that there can be no 
question of humanitarian education, of an education 
that shall put every individual into full and conscious 
possession of all his powers and capabilities, and shall 
impel him to the attainment of every possibility of 
his nature. Such a type of education would be entirely 
out of harmony with oriental ideas. Hence all the 
systems of education that have arisen among them, — 
and some of them as we shall see have been of endur- 
ing influence, — have, with the single exception of that 
of the Hebrews, been of that type which has gener- 
ically been termed national, while assuming specific 
forms which were adapted to the special ideas of the 
several races. 



0[iip:ntal civilization 3.3 

Two of these systems, one typically passive, the 
others active in character, have for us a special interest 
from their enormous antiquity, and from the perman- 
ent influence they have exerted, — in the one case on the 
most populous country of the globe, and in the other ex- 
tending to the most progressive modern nations. Chi- 
nese and Egyptian civilizations, so far as we can trust 
the evidence of their monuments arid their annals, 
were already old, before ^Eneas sailed from the shores 
of ruined Troy, before Greece had emerged from the 
darkness of primitive barbarism, before Romulus had 
laid on the banks of the Tiber the feeble foundations 
of a city which should later fule the world; and Egypt, 
after a national existence of abundantly more than 
thirty centuries, had lost its political importance long 
before Rome had reached the zenith of its power. 

Japan will claim our attention from its connection 
with China in educational subjects and methods, and 
from its singularly rapid progress within the last 
quarter of a century; the education of India, of the 
Phcynician peoples, and of early Persia, presents several 
points of interest; and it needs hardly be said that 
Hebrew education is of great importance to all Chris- 
tian peoples. 

China 

The character of the Chinese, while similar in 
general to that of other orientals, exhibits traits which 
have doubtless been deepened by the education of a 
hundred successive generations. Quick of observation 
and strong of memory, they yet show a striking lack 
of ideality and of inferential reason. Their feelings 



34 CHIN^A 

are somewhat weak, yet they are persistent on a low 
key. They are polite, docile, and deferential ; but all 
this is outward and intellectual, having little if any 
reference to the feelings, — the result of ingrained 
habituation rather than of principle. From the pecul- 
iarity of their intellectual constitution, their science is 
a mere collection of observations and maxims, without 
inferences save in the domain of outward conduct; 
and their discoveries and inventions, of which they 
have early hit upon several, e. g., gun-powder, the 
directive property of the magnet, and the art of print- 
ing from engraved blocks, have never been carried out 
to perfection nor to their most obvious practical con- 
sequences. 

During the entire course of their history, their most 
prominent characteristic, their dominant national idea 
has been that of reverence for parents and ancestors 
and obedience to their authority. Five centuries be- 
fore the Christian era, Confucius, who professedly 
based his teachings on those of the ancients, derives 
all duties from the duties of the child to his parents. 
He says " Filial love is the root of all virtues, and from 
it grows all morality. He who fulfils his duties to his 
parent, will in a higher station be free from pride, in 
a lower will be free from insubordination, and among 
his equals will not show himself contentious." 

This idea has not only led to the worship of ances- 
tors, who were believed to be guardian spirits of their 
descendants, granting them aid and protection in times 
of need, and sharing their honors and their fame; but 
has controlled the entire organization of the Chinese 
government, and has given form and character to the 



KEVEREKCE A^T) OBEDIEKCE 35 

system of education. The government, which is care- 
fully articulated and extends its influence to every part 
of life, is based on the ancestral idea, and depends 
rather on tradition than on regular legislation. The 
state is nothing other than the family developed to a 
national extent: it is a great family of the people with 
the emperor as father of all, and in a very true sense, 
also the teacher of all his people ; for on set occasions he 
visits in state certain of the schools, and besides other 
things, in presence of the pupils he ministers with his 
own august hands to the wants of the aged, thus by 
his own powerful example emphasizing to his subjects 
the importance of this prime doctrine of Chinese faith. 
Hence their system of education, directed though it 
is to the purposes of the state, has the family or an- 
cestral character, and has been designated by Eosen- 
kranz as the passive family type of a national system. 
It would be a mistake to suppose that the masses of 
China are sunk in ignorance. On the contrary they are 
in general possessed of a certain measure of education 
which they value quite as highly as any other race.* 
A ready proof of this may be seen in the representa- 
tives of these lowest masses that are to be found in 
most considerable centres of population. This educa- 
tion has its limits beyond which the nation has never 
advanced: limits which depend ii^'^part on the charac- 
ter of the race, in part on their prolonged isolation 
from other peoples, and in part no doubt on the nature 
of their written language, which by making heavy 
demands on the memory leaves little force to be ad- 

* Dr. Williams iu "■ The Middle Kingdom ", C.ix. expresses the opinion 
that the extent of elementary education in China has been much overrated. 



36 CHINA 

dressed to the development of other powers. From 
these and possibly other causes, "education and in- 
struction has never gone beyond the impression of 
received ideas, an ordering of the outer behavior, an 
inculcation of prescribed ceremonies, and the acquisi- 
tion of learning for the purpose of outward prosperity 
and external honor."* 

It would also be equally a mistake to suppose that 
the reproach of complete mental stagnation through 
countless generations, so often urged against China, is 
wholly deserved. The art of printing from engraved 
blocks which became diffused in China as early at least 
as the 13th century, is said to have caused an appreci- 
able advance in science; and in later ages the contact 
with Arabians and East Indians, ^s in earlier times the 
influx of Buddhism from India, has caused a sufficient 
development of spirit to relieve the Chinese from the 
stigma of entire spiritual immobility. 

Yet that which is ancestral and has been transmitted 
from antiquity, is still far the most prominent part, 
whether in culture, or in customs, or in education. 
Even in their high estimate of education, and in their 
marked reverence for the teacher's office, the Chinese 
are guided by ancestral authority. Their earliest 
book, the Shuking, which claims to have originated as 
early as 2300 B. C, says of education: " The thoughts 
must be directed to study from the beginning to the 
end; if one has the highest maxims in his reach, but 
does not study them, he know^s not their worth. 
Hence when we study we begin first to know our in- 
sufficiency, and when we teach we first recognize our 

* Schmidt. 



ANCESTRAL AUTHORITY 37 

own limitations." So too in a treatise of theirs which 
is not later than the first Christian century we find 
this: — " If a wise man desires to reform his people and 
perfect their customs, he must promote education. 
Therefore the wise kings of ancient days, in founding 
kingdoms, and in the guidance of their people, cared 
first of all for their instruction and study." The 
importance of education could hardly be expressed in 
words more emphatic than those of this ancient Chi- 
nese author, since by implication an omnipotent power 
is ascribed to it in shaping national manners and in 
influencing national life. 

Again, it was an ancient Chinese maxim that '' one 
must honor through his whole life him whom he had 
once had for a'teacher; " nor was the observance of this 
maxim left to individual caprice; for the ceremonial of 
reverence with which the teacher should on various 
occasions be met, and the respectful offering which 
should at stated times be made to him, were carefully 
prescribed. Even the revered name of Confucius 
means Kong the Teacher. 

The subject matter of Chinese education, is, and 
always has been, wholly ancestral in its character, — a 
legacy from an unknown antiquity. Its bases are read- 
ing^ and writing, and a minute ceremonial etiquette 
w^hich extends to every relation of life; to which are 
added^the][^art^of reckoning, some elementary notions 
of_Jgeometry, music, and dancing, and some gymnastic 
exercises intended to prepare for warlike duties. Some 
of^ the Chinese writings ascribe to music a potency in 
education'quite analogous to that which v/as claimed 
for it by the great Athenian philosophers. 



38 CHINA 

To understand the full significance of reading and 
writing as elements of Chinese education, we need to 
consider the nature of their written language. It is 
chiefly ideographic, that is made up of characters 
representing ideas, to which is added a number of 
phonetic signs, forming a highly complex series of 
characters, many thousands in number, but which it 
is estimated may be reduced to about 2425 more or less 
distinct symbols. The mastery of these in reading 
and writing, like the mastery of an equivalent alpha- 
bet, requires years of effort, and implies great and dis- 
criminate use of the observing powers and an enormous 
tax upon mere adhesive memory. 

Nor was the manner in which these characters were 
taught calculated to diminish in the least the difficulty 
of the task. It consisted in first a mere memoriter 
impression of the symbols by observation and copying, 
without any clear idea of their import, to which suc- 
ceeded the mastery of their meaning, and last of all 
an exposition of the contents of the book. To the 
mastery of the written characters, succeeded with the 
more advanced pupils the study of the Chinese classics, 
the five books compiled and arranged by Confucius 
from ancient sources, and the four written by him or his 
immediate disciples; added to which was the practice 
of composition on a highly artificial model, leading to 
the several State examinations. 

The numeral system of the Chinese is somewhat 
complicated; but the art of reckoning was and is 
greatly facilitated by the use of a species of abacus 
which was early devised by them, and it was practised 
with boys until they became sufficiently expert for all 



SCHOOL EDUCATION 39 

the purposes of life. The teaching of etiquette and 
the inculcation of the maxims of morals, duties, and 
conduct, was early begun at home, and was carried by 
precept and practice through all the stages of school 
life, making indeed a part of the examinations of the 
State. Literary education was confined almost entirely 
to boys, girls being trained usually merely in house- 
hold duties and in the customs and etiquette suited to 
their station.* 

For the mass of the people, school education ended 
at about the age of fifteen. For the sons of the 
wealthy, and for those whose ambition prompted them 
to strive for higher attainments, the subjects were the 
same as have been already named, but were pursued to 
a far higher degree of mastery in several grades of 
higher schools, passage from lower to higher in these 
being dependent on rigid examinations. 

For these schools there was ample encouragement, 
for that way led to promotion and to the highest honors 
of the state. The state supports no schools, leaving 
this solely to private initiative, but it sets examina- 
tions; and to those who exhibit the highest proficiency 
in these, and to no others in theory at least, are opened 
all the highest as well as lowest offices of the state. 
In this way, although the examinations are wholly lit- 
erary and ceremonial, not only has the State usually 
been well served in all administrative offices by its 
most energetic and intelligent citizens, those best 
versed in its ideas and purposes; but so powerful a 
stimulus has been given to general education, that it 

*Dr. Williams in C.ix, Middle Kingdom, gives a much more favorable 
view of female education at present. 



40 CHIXA 

is said few places can be found in China so poor as not 
to have schools of at least an elementary character. 
For these schools, teachers are never wanting; for but 
a small proportion of those who enter the higher state 
examinations can succeed; and from the ranks of those 
who fail, are recruited the numbers of those who enter 
upon the laborious and poorly paid but highly honored 
vocation of elementary schoolmasters. 

Such is a brief sketch of educati-on as it has long 
existed in China; its aims, not mental development 
and originality, but uniformity in transmitting the 
ideas, the customs, and the usages of the ancients, 
with persistent limitation to these; its subjects, cliiefly 
literary and ceremonial, acquaintance with native 
classics, skill and dexterity in style, and readiness in 
the complicated ceremonial of social and political life; 
its method, not developing but dogmatic and authorita- 
tive, demanding from the pupil no free play of thought, 
but merely docile receptivity, memoriter learning, 
exact imitation, patient repetition, and careful prac- 
tice; its effects on character, men exactly and formally 
polite, unvarying in routine, skilful within narrow 
limits, imitative but not inventive, materialists in be- 
lief, indifferent to all higher motives and aspirations. 

The history of any race, and in a special sense 
the history of its education, would be very incom- 
plete if it took no account of the moral and religious 
ideas of the race; for such ideas have always and 
everywhere been the most powerful motive-forces 
known to men. We have already seen how deeply the 
Chinese idea of filial reverence, in the form of a wor- 
ship of ancestors and sedulous transmission of ances- 



LAO-TSE 41 

tral ideas and usages, entered into all parts of Chi- 
nese life, and how completely it pervaded Chinese 
education. Let us now briefly glance at the men who 
collected, organized, and inspired through their own 
personality, the religious and philosophic ideas derived 
from a more remote antiquity; and who gave them the 
form in which, for nearly twenty-five centuries, they 
have been influential in every sphere of Chinese activity. 

In the Gth century before Christ, appeared two men 
who were an honor not more to China than to human- 
ity, — Lao-tse, born 604 B. C, and Kong-fu-tse, 550 
B. C, known to western nations as Confucius. Lao- 
tse was a great transcendental philosopher and ex- 
pounder of religious ideas. Basing his system on the 
idea of one perfect, eternal, omnipresent, and Creative 
Being, whom he called Tao, who sways all things, and 
expresses himself in nature and in man, Lao-tse taught 
that a noble and unselfish morality is the only service 
acceptable to this unsearchable Being; that man's 
highest duty is to strive to harmonize his own nature 
with the Divine nature; and that to accomplish this, 
he must free himself from the dominion of passions,- 
and "must strive that his purer spiritual self, his 
reason and will, may so dominate the ignoble and less 
pure, that his nature may become an united, harmoni- 
ous, and inseparable whole." 

It is obvious that Lao-tse had clearly grasped the 
idea of freedom of the will and of human perfectibil- 
ity, not only as objects attainable by all human beings 
through earnest efforts, but also as the supreme duty 
of every man to struggle to attain. These ideas, 
which would have wrought a complete revolution in 



42 CHIN^A 

Chinese education, were too elevated and too little in 
unison with the spirit of Chinese life ever to find a 
complete acceptance among liis countrymen; yet in 
later times, mingled with gross superstitions which 
Lao-tse would have been the first to repudiate, and 
with Buddhistic ideas more nearly akin to themselves, 
they gave rise to Tao-ism, which has always had many 
adherents in China, and has doubtless exerted no in- 
considerable influence on Chinese pedagogy. Indeed 
it would seem that any future efforts to reform the 
educational systems of that country would find their 
most promising starting-point in the doctrines of this 
indigenous sage, enlisting thus in the work of change 
the instinctive Chinese reverence for ancestral authority. 

A far greater and more pervasive influence has been 
thus far exerted on all the 
currents of Chinese life 
by Lao-tse's yuunger con- 
temporary, Confucius. He 
early distinguished himself 
by his learning, his wisdom, 
his skill in administering 
his native province, and his 
efforts to rehabilitate many 
of the ancient customs 
which had fallen into neg- confucus. onu-4r8 n. c. 

lect. He paid a visit to the aged Lao-tse, and received 
from him advice, which, however deeply it impressed 
him, as witnessed by his eulogiums to his disciples, 
evidently wrought no change in his settled convictions. 
Deprived of his offices through the machinations of 
his enemies, at the age of fifty-six he entered on mis- 




CONFUCIUS 43 

sionary journeys, in which, amid indifference, persecu- 
tion, and even imprisonment, for thirteen years he 
taught and preached the return of the people of China 
to their ancient customs. He died 478 B. C, at the 
age of seventy-three. 

After his death his great merits were fully recog- 
nized; temples were erected in his honor, in conform- 
ity with the Chinese custom of ancestral worship ; and 
stated offerings were presented at his shrines in school- 
rooms as well as temples, as to the great philosopher, 
teacher, and complete master. His descendants are 
said now to constitute the only hereditary nobility in 
China, aside from the imperial family. 

If Lao-tse was a great philosopher and religious 
idealist, so was Confucius a conservative reformer and 
practical philosopher, materialistic rather than spiritu- 
.alistic in all his ideas. He recognized and conformed 
to the ancient ideas and customs; considered the uni- 
verse as eternal, and nature as governed by the rigid 
necessity of initial laws; and taught that wisdom con- 
;sists in the strict performance of one's duties, and in 
the cultivation of corresponding feelings. He col- 
lected and arranged in five books the ancient science, 
■customs, and religious observations, which he explained 
and inspired, having always in view practical life in 
the state, and the employment of the individual in 
the great ivhole which he believed to be interpenetrated 
by the Divine spirit. Thus complete serviceableness 
in the body politic becomes as near a religious service 
■as Confucius seems to recognize and the national idea 
jn Chinese culture becomes prominent. 

Human duties he founds on the ancient Chinese 



44 CHINA 

scheme, viz., duties to parents, to rulers, to consorts^ 
to elder brothers and to friends, deriving all these, as- 
has before been mentioned, from the duties of chil- 
dren to parents. He recognizes also as fundamental 
virtues, " universal charity, pure sincerity, impartial 
justice, rectitude of heart and mind, or wisdom, and 
conformity to established customs and usages." His 
effort in all his teachings was to maintain intact the 
ancient customs and worship, while harmonizing them 
with what he considered the results of his own inves- 
tigations in a practical philosophy of life. 

Hence I have called him a conservative reformer. 
Through these services, and. through the writings of 
himself and his immediate disciples, especially MenciuSy 
which form the remaining four of the great Chinese 
classics, he became the founder of a new and impor- 
tant epoch in Chinese science, literature, and ethics;, 
and, since he believed that all virtues might be incul- 
cated by a consistent discipline, he has exerted a 
weighty influence on Chinese education. 

That this influence has been on the whole salutary 
it would be difficult either to affirm or to deny, — so- 
much depends in questions like this on a due considera- 
tion of the special genius of a people, and what man 
of European stock and culture can feel sure that he 
fully enters into the spirit of this oriental race ? It 
can hardly be doubted that only by reason of its gen- 
eral harmony with the innate tendencies of the Mon- 
golian race has it come to pass that Confucianism, as 
an intellectual religion and system of practical ethics, 
has so long been widely influential in China and Japan^ 
and has been the system to which the mass of the lit- 



TSCHU-LI 45 

erati in both these countries has most largely adhered. 

China can also boast a theorist of education of sur- 
prising enlightenment of view in Tschu-Li, born 1129 
A. D., who was called "Prince of Knowledge", on 
account of his sagacity and many-sided learning. He 
wrote a pedagogic treatise entitled the " Little School " 
irom which I transcribe a remarkable extract. " The 
iirt of education consists in this, — early to bring into 
subjection the desires of youth, to condescend to their 
powers of comprehension, to demand from them nothing 
but what they can do without fatigue, and to place 
before their eyes only examples of morality and virtue. 
These fourxlemands contain all that is vital for the 
education of youth."* In this passage, while the first 
demand breathes the spirit of Lao-tse, we seem to 
hear in them all the voice of Comenius or of Herbart 
and his followers. 

As regards method also Tschu-Li manifests the spirit 
of modern pedagogy rather than anything distinctively 
Chinese; insomuch that were the ideas of this Chinese 
treatise adopted in China, they w^ould revolutionize 
the entire method and spirit of education. When we 
consider that at the very time when this treatise was 
written, Europe was just beginning to emerge from 
the thick gloom of the Dark Ages, and was laying the 
foundations of its earliest universities, and that it had 
still to endure four centuries of scholasticism and of 
gropings after something better, before the springing 
up of those wiser pedagogic views with which these so 
remarkably harmonize, — we shall doubtless find this 
12th century Chinese treatise sufficiently remarkable. 

* Schmidt, Gesch. der Padagogik, i. 60. 



46 JAPAN 

Japan 

Although the people of Japan are very distinct from 
those of China in their early history as well as in their 
spoken language, yet the strong influence which Chi- 
nese ideas and literature have exerted on their modes 
of education, renders it possible to despatch their 
pedagogic history with but little detail. 

Little is known of the condition of education in 
Japan up to 270 A. D., when the written language of 
China and the Confucian classics were introduced into 
the country, followed about three centuries later by 
Buddhism.* Since that time education has generally 
been encouraged by the government, though the uni- 
versality of its extension was at some times materially 
deranged, during the supremacy over the mikado of 
the warrior nobility with the tycoon at their head. 

The revolution of 1868, which restored the mikado 
to real supremacy, was an educational not less than a 
political one, and has largely thrown Japanese educa- 
tion into the current of European and American ideas. 
Hence we see Japanese youth resorting to our schools 
that they may bear back to their native land the fruits 
of Western learning. These young men are usually 
of the highest class, either intellectually or socially^ 
yet we are assured by those conversant with the facts^ 
that as a race the Japanese are of full average intel- 
lectual ability as measured by our Western standards, 
and that their boys are superior to English and Ameri- 
can bo}s in docility, obedience, self-control, and polite- 
ness, while inferior in energy and manly independence. 

*Griffis in '-The Mikado's Empire". H 1. §3. doubts whether the Jap- 
anese had aiiv writing before the 6th century A. D. 



EDUCA.TION AT FIRST CHINESE IN TYPE 47 

This inferiority I am inclined to doubt. Possibly their 
deferential politeness may have given rise to an opinion 
of their lack of independence. 

The old Japanese education which existed up to 
1868, was wholly Chinese in type. Its subject-matter 
was the Chinese classics, —careful training in morals, 
etiquette, and duties as expressed in external forms, 
with chief emphasis laid on obedience to parents and 
rulers, and serviceableness to society and the state; 
added to which was reckoning with the abacus, and 
some knowledge of Japanese history and laws. Its 
method and spirit were Chinese, — dogmatic and au- 
thoritative; no intellectual development, no growth of 
character, no expansion of the inner man, was dreamed 
of or desired; and independent thought was little bet- 
ter than a crime : its whole tendency was to magnify 
memory and to nullify the reasoning power. 

Its encouragements were also Chinese, for admission 
to state employments was dependent on state exami- 
nations in higher learning in the Chinese classics, and 
especially in the works of Confucius; with this differ- 
ence however that while in China there are no heredi- 
tary distinctions of rank, aside from the imperial 
family and the descendants of Confucius, save what 
learning confers, in Japan there are such distinctions, 
as unalterable, and guarded with as jealous sensitive- 
ness as in many European countries; and only children 
of noble birth have usually attained the higher edu- 
cation. 

Thus it may be seen that in Old Japan as in China, 
education was very one-sided. In the words of the 
present editors of Schmidt's Geschichte, its whole 



48 JAPAN 

tendency was "to form respectful sons, docile pupils, 
disciplined subjects, skilled copyists, enthusiastic ad- 
mirers of antiquity, and narrow-minded disciples of 
Confucius; but it did not stir intelligence, left the in- 
dividual conscience wholly under the control of cus- 
tom, wakened no religious thoughts or aspirations, and 
encouraged the narrow spirit of caste and clan." 

That sixteen centuries of this kind of training had 
left to the Japanese people so great a spirit of enter-' 
prise, so much intellectual ambition to grasp a richer 
and deeper culture, as they have displayed in the last 
few decades, speaks volumes for the original vigor of 
the race, and for its radical intellectual differences from 
the Chinese, with which it is sometimes carelessly con- 
founded. 

Dr. Murray, the late secretary of the Xew York 
Board of Regents, and formerly connected with the 
Japanese ministry of educa- 
tion, says that the ability to 
read and write is so general 
that but few even of the ,- ^^ 

lowest classes can be found , --* 

who are not able to do botli : 
and that, unlike China, this 
is true of ivomen as well as 
men. Indeed the position 
of women amongst the Japa- 
nese has always been higher 
and better than amongst most of the Oriental peoples. 
So too while the power of the father over his children 
has always been practically unlimited, extending even 
to the right to sell them; and while obedience and 



David Murray. 1830— 



EDUCATION" N^OW OF WESTERN" TYPE 49 

reverence to parents has always been carefully incul- 
cated and exacted, — the educational discipline has 
been and is so mild and indulgent that a somewhat 
recent traveller has called Japan the "paradise of 
children". At present, Japanese education and its 
administration are organized on the model presented 
by the Western nations, with which their educational 
history seems likely henceforth to be correlated. 

It may be seen, then, that in China and Japan the 
system of education was national in type, having 
chiefly in view social life in the state, and that it was 
modified by the prevailing idea of reverence for ances- 
tors to a passive family form, — passive because intended 
to make men passive recipients of what was transmitted 
from antiquity, passive participants in the duties and 
benefits of the state. In Japan it also received a 
farther important modification by a fixed system of 
hereditary rank; and from near the close of the 12th 
century to 1868, was considerably hampered by the 
supremacy of the warrior nobility. 

BOOKS OF REFERENCE FOR THE STUDENT 

Confucius and the Chinese Classics — Rev. A. W. Loomis. 

The Middle Kingdom.— Dr. S. W. Williams, Chapters IX, 
XI, and XVIII. 

The Mikado's Empire.— W. E. Gritfis. 

View of Chinese Empire. — W. Winterbotham. 

Schmidt, Geschichte der Padagogik, 4th Ed. 

History of Public Instruction in China. — Edouard Biot. 

Of these, "The Middle Kingdom" will doubtless be found 
most easily accessible and most reliable. 



CHAPTEK II 

OEIENTAL EDUCATION — INDIAN AND BUDDHISTIC 

The educational system of India demands a brief 
notice, both from some of its marked peculiarities and 
from some important services rendered by it to West- 
ern science. It presents in its purest form the char- 
acters of a passive national system of caste education. 
As amongst most oriental nations, the dominant idea 
of this system is of a religious character. 

In India this idea is pantheistic, a belief in the 
ultimate absorption of the individual soul into God, 
the soul of the universe, and of its preparation 
for this ultimate state by successive transmigrations, 
or reexistences in other beings and forms, in the course 
of which reexistence it might become purified and 
fitted for its final destiny. 

It is obvious that such a fundamental belief, leading 
as it does to self-abnegation, would give little encour- 
agement to an education of man for a self-asserting 
activity and for a feeling of individual responsibility, 
and that hence education and life would be likely to be 
passive in character. To convert likelihood into cer- 
tainty, there was needed only a race of idealistic and 
speculative tendencies like the Hindoos, provided with 
a rigidly exclusive system of castes, such as has existed 
nowhere else in such perfection. 

From the earliest periods known to history, educa- 
(50) 



BRAHMIIyTS, WARRIOES, TRADERS 51 

tion in Hindostan might extend only to the males of 
the three higher castes, Brahmins, warriors, and 
traders, who might be taught reading, writing, and 
reckoning, with the special capabilities, duties, cus- 
toms, and ceremonies peculiar to the caste of each. 
To the lowest caste and to pariahs no school education 
was granted. Higher education was also nominally 
accessible to the youth of the three higher castes; but 
in reality, the Brahmins long held a monopoly of it. 

From ancient days, schools for higher learning have 
been cared for in India, and in them were taught 
grammar, history, philosophy, poetry, astronomy, la*v,, 
medicine, and last but not least important, mathemat- 
ics. It is now believed that the Arabian knowledge of 
mathematics was derived from India, and especially 
our convenient decimal system of notation, — not in- 
deed with our present characters, but in all its essential 
features. 

From their control of the higher learning, the 
Brahmins were naturally the exclusive possessors of 
all the learned employments, and so were the sole 
teachers of India. They accepted no payment for 
their services, counting it infamous to receive fees for 
teaching; but it was customary for the parents of their 
pupils to make " all kinds of presents, small or great 
according to their means and their good will ", and 
these the Brahmin teachers received with favor. This 
was obviously a delicate mode of opening the way to 
elementary education to boys of the three favored 
castes without regard to the wealth or poverty of their 
parents, though it does not seem to have been so in- 
tended. 



52 



INDIA 



The usual places of meeting for elementary instruc- 
tion in all favorable weather, were in the open air 
under the shade of trees. The method of teaching 
was wholly doguiatic, the teacher authoritatively im- 
parting the subject matter, and the boys reverently 
receiving it as from a spiritual father, committing it to 
memory usually without understanding it, and, in the 
case of religious usages and maxims of conduct, 
familiarizing them by habitual imitation. 

In this work, the teachers made large use of the 





Joseph Lancaster, 1778-1838 Andrew Bell, 1753- 

older boys, who practised the younger ones in what they 
had themselves been taught. From this ancient East 
Indian custom, Andrew Bell doubtless derived the idea 
of the monitorial system which he introduced into 
England near the close of the last century, and which 
in his hands and those of Joseph Lancaster has made 
so considerable a figure in elementary instruction in 
that country, and has gradually been merged in the 
valuable system of pupil-apprenticeship to teaching 
which still prevails. 

The first practice in writing was in the sand; then, 



CASTE 53 

when some degree of facility had been attained, upon 
palm leaves with an iron point; and finally with ink 
upon leaves of the plane tree. From the great rever- 
ence in which the teachers were held, the discipline in 
these primitive schools was very mild, reproofs were 
rare, and bodily inflictions still more rare. Dr. Dittes 
says that a peculiarly East Indian punishment for re- 
fractory boys was to shower them with cold water.* 

It is apparent that even if the religious ideas of the 
Hindoos had left open any inducements to honorable 
individual aspirations after higher education, the caste 
system would have inexorably barred the way to their 
realization. The best that any boy could hope for, 
whatever might be his personal gifts and desires, was 
to retain his place within the narrow limits of his 
ancestral caste, and to be devoted to his ancestral 
employijients, however repugnant they might be to his 
tastes. He might by refractoriness and misconduct 
sink to a lower place; but no learning however exten- 
sive, no personal merit however great, could ever win 
for him admission to a higher caste. 

To this cause is doubtless due the fact that all higher 
learning was practically confined to the highest caste; 
that even among them it has made no advance in recent 
centuries; and that the Hindoos, naturally the most 
gifted with all fine qualities of all the Oriental peoples, 
have sunk into a condition of hopeless resignation, 
and have offered no effective resistance to the inroads 
of more energetic races. Pantheism and the caste 
system have afforded them an education eminently 

* Schule der Padagogik, Part 4th p. 35. 



54 INDIA 

effective in its fatal consequences. Besides this warn- 
ing of the pernicious results on education of a rigid 
class feeling and of a depressing religious belief, 
ancient Indian educational history has bequeathed to 
present ages the decimal system of notation, the sug- 
gestion of the monitorial method of instruction, and 
a rich literature of which we are but recently begin- 
ning to realize the value. 

Like most ruling hierarchies, the Brahmin caste has 
shown itself energetic to resist the inroads of any 
ideas that threatened to disturb its own supremacy. 
This disposition was shown in its active and successful 
struggle with Buddhism. This religious system which 
originated in India during the Gth century before the 
Christian era, and which is said now to number among 
its adherents about 400 millions of the Asiatic peoples, 
or more than one-fourth of the inhabitants of the 
globe, roused the vigorous opposition of the Brahmins, 
largely because the consequences of its doctrines were 
opposed to the caste system; and they secured its ex- 
pulsion from India, except the northern part and the 
Island of Ceylon, about the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era. 

The doctrines of "The Buddha, or wise one, while 
utterly ignoring any supreme creative intelligence, 
taught the equality of men; that existence is on the 
whole a curse; that the chief cause of human misery 
lies in the desires and passions; that therefore men 
can attain final happiness only by ruling and subduing 
their passions and desires, by self-denial, by universal 
charity, and by moral goodness, all which are within 
the reach of every man; that at death, the spirit unless 



BUDDHISM 55 

completely purified at once re-exists in some higher or 
lower form according to the tenor of its present life; 
and that ultimately, when completely purified by its 
transmigrations, it may reach a state of blessedness 
called nirvana, which many consider to differ in no 
essential point from annihilation. 

In its generally accepted form therefore, Buddhism 
prompts the individual to isolate himself from his kind 
like the monks of the Middle Ages, and like them to 
practise great austerities and to pass life in introspec- 
tive contemplation, that he may the sooner fit himself 
for nirvana. This monastic outcome of Buddhism has 
long existed widely in Asiatic lands, and especially in 
Thibet, where every father who has four sons must 
devote one to the monastic life; and where the highest 
purpose of education and of life is to attain to this 
condition, or at least to share in the spiritual benefits 
which the Buddhistic monks are thought to confer 
upon their fellows. This, the eminently passive form 
of education, the monks being the sole teachers, in 
which all the ordinary objects of human activity are 
taught to be worse than valueless, and in which science 
and art are of worth only as they minister to religion, 
has, in the words of Eosenkranz, " covered the rocky 
heights of Thibet with countless cloisters, and trained 
the people who are dependent upon it, into a child- 
like amiability, into a contented repose." 

It is obvious that the original doctrines of Buddhism, 
corrupted though they have been to a degrading super- 
stition by the materialistic peoples of Asia, and though 
they discourage that normal human activity on which 
tlie advance of civilization depends, had yet an ele- 



56 INDIA 

vated :but* narrow moral aim. Like the Christian 
monasticism of the Middle Agos to which that of 
Thibet presents so striking analogy in form and motive, 
it ignores the vital truth that man lives not alone for 
himself and his own purification, but for his fellows 
also; and that he best prepares himself for future 
blessedness, not by introspective other-worldliness, 
but by the complete fulfilment of all the duties which 
this present life imposes; so using life that, in the 
words of Milton, 

" It shall be still in strict measure even 
To that same lot, however mean or high, 
Towards which time leads me, and the will of 

heaven: 
All is, if / have grace to use it so, 
As ever in my great Task-Master's eye." 
The training which either example of monasticism 
promotes is evidently far removed from that broad 
humanitarian culture which the true spirit of Chris- 
tianity demands. 



CHAPTER III 

PEIESTLY EDUCATIOI"^ — EGYPT 

As China may stand for the most important example 
of a passive national educational education, so Egypt 
should undoubtedly be made the leading type of an 
active national culture, — one inspired, that is to say, 
by an active idea. It deserves this prominence, not 
more from the great duration of its national life and 
history, than from the extent and richness of the cul- 
ture which it attained, and from the probable influence 
exerted by this culture on the nations from which we 
inherit. 

No small confusion exists in early Egyptian chron- 
ology, with a discrepancy of three thousand years 
between extreme estimates of its duration; yet accord- 
ing to an apparently conservative estimate, Egyptian 
monumental history begins fully 3900 years before 
Christ; and even then Egypt strides forth from the 
darkness of an unannalled past decked with the orna- 
ments of an advanced civilization. Sculptures dating 
it is supposed 2,000 years before Moses, or 3,500 B. C, 
exhibit a feudal aristocracy of warriors with priests, 
magistrates, and laborers; and some of the warrior 
nobles occupy also priestly offices, showing that the 
priests had not yet become a preferred class. To these 
very early times, or possibly earlier, seem to be refer- 
able the earliest literary remains of Egypt, fragments 

(57) 



58 EGYPT 

of medical works, portions of the " Book of the 
Dead ", and the earliest known pedagogi'c work en- 
titled " The Instruction of Ptah-hotep ", of the 5th 
•or Gth Dynasty; as likewise some of the largest pyra- 
mids. 

Centuries of civil strife of the warrior aristocracy 
intervene between this time and the 12th Dynasty, of 
which numerous memorials exist. This Dynasty not 
only became master of Lower and Upper Egypt, of 
the Sinaitic peninsula, and of parts of ^ubia; but 
.showed itself strong enough to secure to its subjects 
the blessings of peace and order, and enlightened 
enough to care for the public weal by remarkable 
•engineering works, like the excavation of Lake Moeris 
designed to secure and regulate the blessings of the 
Nile. The famous Labyrinth dates from this period, 
the culture of which differs much from that of more 
.ancient Egypt, as is testified by several literary exam- 
ples from the age. These are written in a character 
called the hieratic, quite different from the more 
.ancient hieroglyphical writing; and adapted for a more 
rapid style of work, such as was demanded by the in- 
crease of literary activity. 

Between this Dynasty and the 18th occur struggles 
with Semitic races and the reign of Semitic kings in 
-the delta region, which exerted some influence on Egyp- 
tian culture and customs, chiefly by the introduction 
of Semitic words into the language, and of horses and 
-chariots into their warfare. It is not impossible that 
the introduction of the Israelites into Egypt occurred 
-during the latter part of this period. 

The 18th Dynasty, probably about 1700 B. C, be- 



REIGJ^ OF THOTMES THE GREAT 59 

gins the Golden Age of Egypt's universal domination 
with the reigns of Thotmes 1st, 2d, and 3d, the last 
.of whom has been called Thotmes the Great. The 
high culture of this age is illustrated by the vast ruins 
of Carnae and Luxor, and the other quarters of the 
great city of Thebes with their sculptures and monu- 
ments, and by the cotets of the tombs of Thebes, 
which date largely from this period. 

In the 19th and 20th Dynasties follows a period of 
civil and religious strifes, succeeded by the reign of 
the Eamesides, the Pharaohs by whom the Israelites 
were oppressed; and under one of whom, Menephtha, 
the exodus occurred. Georg Ebers lays the scene of 
his brilliant romance Uarda, 1352 B. C, in the reign 
of Rameses 2d, whom he considers the contemporary 
of Moses; and from this romance of a learned Egyp- 
tologist we may gain a picture of the schools and cul- 
ture of that remote period which is not only vivid, but 
also in all probability as truthful as the materials will 
permit us to form. 

Many memorials of this period have come down to 
us, more than of any 'other period,* in sculptures, 
tombs, "manuscripts, the interpretation of which has 
.afforded large knowledge of the arts, the sciences, the 
religion, the education, the social condition, and the 
political organization of this which seems the time of 
culmination of the Egyptian civilization, and the be- 
ginning of its political decline. Its culture is marked 
by the predominance of the material in the life. of the 

* The obelisk in Paris was erected bj- Rameses 2d at the gate of the 
temple of Ammoii Ra in Luxor; and its inscriptions are translated in 
"Records of the Past '", Vol. IV. 



60 . EGYPT 

people, as is testified by its luxury, by its literaturey 
and by that one-sided care for intellectual culture 
which gradually pushed into the background what we 
shall presently see was the dominating idea of the earlier 
Egyptians. The king is still surrounded by a nimbus 
of divinity; the warrior nobles still retain their mar- 
tial power; but the priesthood has mastered the learn- 
ing, and fills the high offices of the state; and that 
segregation of the people into distinct classes is taking 
place which caused Herodotus and Plato to report that 
a caste system prevailed in Egypt. 

The revolutions in government which followed this 
period, and the successive conquests of the country 
by Ethiopians and Assyrians, by Cambyses, and by 
Alexander and his successors, seem to have wrought 
little change in the nature and extent of Egyptian 
culture to the time of Herodotus and Plato, from 
which time it mingles with the current European civ- 
ilization. 

This brief and rapid survey of Egyptian history has 
seemed expedient, not merely that we may gain an idea 
of the vast periods of time through which it extends, 
but chiefly that, by marking some of its most promi- 
nent epochs, we may gain a clearer notion of its edu- 
cational history and may better apprehend the an- 
tiquity and trace the influence of its dominant educa- 
tional idea. 

This idea, which has left its deep impress on the 
fnonuments of Egypt, and has caused its educational 
efforts to be designated as an active struggle to con- 
quer death and to cause the influence of one's earthly 
career to transcend the limits of the grave, was the 



THE JUDGMENT OF OSIKIS 61 

conviction of the immortality of the soul, and of a 
righteous retribution after death for the entire tenor 
of the eartlily life. This belief, symbolized in the 
pyramids, those vast tombs of Egypt's early kings, in 
the extensive sepulchres which later ages constructed, 
and in the embalment of the worthy dead that after 
3,000 years their bodies might be ready for the re-oc- 
cupation of their former tenants, had its supernatural 
sanction in the belief that Osiris with forty-two fellow 
judges, weighed the acts of the dead who appeared 
before his judgment seat, and decided their future lot 
in accordance with the deeds done in the body. This 
supernatural tribunal had also its earthly counterpart 
in the " Court of the Dead", modelled after that of 
Osiris, which had jurisdiction only of the dead, and 
which awarded the rites of sepulture or withjield them 
even from the most powerful personages, according to 
the entire tenor of their lives, this award affecting the 
entire family of the deceased. 

It may readily be seen how weighty an educational 
motive this belief and practice must have been, and 
how influential in promoting the virtues that were 
deemed essential, and in " establishing an ideal stand- 
ard of living ". 

What was this standard, and what the virtues that 
were emphasized, we learn from passages in the " Book 
of the Dead", where in justifying himself before the 
judgment seat of Osiris, the departed soul sayS' — 
"Yea, I recognize you, ruler of truth and justice. I 
brought you truth; for you I avoided lies. I acted 
not with craft and deceit towards men. I defrauded 
not the widow. I uttered no false oath; I knew nought 



62 EGYPT 

of lies. I did nought that 'was forbidden. I per- 
mitted no overseer to exact more labor daily from the 
laborers than was just. I was not frivolous. I was 
not slothful. I was not weak. I was not dull. I did 
nothing which the gods abhor. I did not set the ser- 
vant against his master. I let no one hunger. I 
caused no tears. I have not killed, nor have 1 given 
command for secret murder. I practised deceit against 
none. I never took bread from the temples. I filched-, 
not the cakes offered to the gods. I did not rifle the- 
dead of their possessions, nor of their swathing bands.. 
I did not cheat. I falsified not the measure of corn. 
I defrauded not a finger-breadth in measure. I used 
no deceitful weights nor false balances. I took tO' 
myself no one's lands. I took not the milk from the 
mouths of babes. I hunted not the sacred beasts on 
the meadows, nor did I catch with nets the holy birds, 
nor the holy fish from the pools. I checked not the 
water in its time; I divided no arm of the stream in 
its course,"* etc., ending with the ejaculation " I am 
clean, I am clean, I am clean! " 

Much of this cannot but remind us of the decalogue 
and the Hebrew law. Some things are peculiar to 
Egyptian circumstances, — such as robbing the dead 
and the temples, hunting sacred animals, and divert- 
ing water courses; yet even these are special forms of 
sacrilege and injustice; and the entire list, completed 
by portions which I have omitted as needless in a brief 
specimen, constitutes an admirable code of duties 

* Further extract from "The Book of the Dead" showing the virtues 
emphasized by the Egyptians, may be found in the second lecture of 
Kenouf's "Religion of Ancient Egypt". 



THE CODE OF MOKALS 63' 

which man owes to God and to his neighbor. These 
duties the ancient Egyptian felt himself bound to 
observe, on pain not only of spiritual misery, but of 
bringing disgrace on relatives, and of depriving him- 
self of the rites of sepulture and the honor of embal- 
ment. 

Under the impulsion of a ruling idea such as this, 
which, in some of its leading features, — such as the 
esoteric conception of one creative intelligence held by 
the priesthood, and the belief in immortality, in a 
judgment and righteous retribution after death, and 
in the endless blessedness of the good in God — whick 
has curiously close analogies with Christianity — Egyp- 
tian civilization flourished long and reached a high 
point. Doubtless much of this was held in its purity 
only by the most enlightened spirits, as is possibly true 
of most religious ideas; doubtless still more was over- 
laid and disfigured by superstitions which to us seem 
degrading, in which also Egypt is far from standing 
alone; but a thoughtful observer can hardly help 
thinking that Egyptian decline is marked by the weak- 
ening influence of this fundamental idea; and by the 
creeping in, during the times of the Ptolemies and 
even earlier, of a skeptical spirit which cast doubt on 
the ancient beliefs while there was yet nothing better 
to fill their place. 

Another circumstance which doubtless exerted a 
beneficial influence on the education of the Egyptians, 
was the relatively high position of women among them. 
The freedom of action of their women was singularly 
great; not unfrequently they appear as rulers and 
managers; often the children are named and take rank 



64 EGYPT 

from the mother; to the priests but one wife was per- 
mitted; monogamy appears to have been the general 
practice save for the kings, and even with them one wife 
was the queen and ruler of the house. All this testi- 
fies to the high grade of civilization of this ancient 
race, and could not have failed to exert a great influ- 
ence on the home training of the young. 

The food of young children was of the simplest vege- 
tables; in that mild climate little clothing was needed; 
and some one has estimated, I do not know on what 
data, that in early Egypt it cost no more than four 
dollars to rear a child. They used in their sports t]ie 
perennial playthings of children — dolls, balls, and tops, 
and things imitative of the employments of their 
elders. They were carefully trained to obedience and 
reverence for parents; and some of the injunctions to 
filial piety that have come down to us singularly resem- 
ble those in the Hebrew scriptures, and remind us of 
the long sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. 

With the fifth year seems to have begun the coopera- 
tion of the school with the family in education, the 
school teaching, with priestly teachers, the essential 
elements of all learning, reading, writing, and reckon- 
ing. How general this elementary instruction was in 
earlier times, we have no means of knowing; but in 
the days of Plato, all or nearly all seem to have shared 
in it, since Plato tells us that the children of the 
masses could read and reckon. 

As early at least as 664 B. C. the character that was 
used for writing and reading in the elementary schools 
was the third or demotic form, of signs for words and 
sounds, which was easier to use than either the hiera- 



REWAKDS OF LEARNING 65 

tic or hieroglyphic forms, but which is said now to be 
very difficult to decipher. The first lessons in writing 
were practised on tablets with a reed stylus, but when 
some facility had been gained the pupil wrote on 
papyrus with a reed pen, using black and red inks. In 
the instruction in numbers, pupils used as objective 
aids their fingers, pebbles, and the abacus, which the 
Egyptians as well as the Chinese had devised. Plato 
in Bk. 7, of the Laws, describes the boys as learning 
arithmetic in play, using objects of several kinds and 
striving emulously to excel, as is natural in play. 

Education beyond the mere elements was given by 
priests in schools held in the temples, which seem to 
have been accessible to children of all classes, but 
which were doubtless limited mostly to sons of wealthy 
persons on account of the considerable expense. They 
were largely resorted to because of the great rewards 
of learning that were offered, since to those who dis- 
tinguished themselves in examinations in the higher 
learning, were opened all the high offices of the state. 
Students, if very promising, might even remain to 
pursue investigations at the public expense. This is 
the earliest example of the endowment of research, 
and an additional evidence of Egyptian enlightenment. 

In view of the material advantages that learning 
offered, the writings that have been preserved testify 
how earnestly the Egyptians pressed upon youth che 
value of education, illustrating this by the wretched 
condition of those condemned to manual toil as con- 
trasted with the favored position of the learned, and 
using this as an incentive to the eager pursuit of their 
studies. An interesting example of this entitled 



66 EGYPT 

" The Praise of Learning", the composition of which 
is attributed to the 12th Dynasty, may be found trans- 
lated in the 8th volume of " The Eecords of the Past ". 

In the higher temple schools, reading and writing, 
which had been taught with the simpler characters in 
the lower schools, were extended to a mastery of the 
hieratic and hieroglyphic symbols, which must have 
required prolonged study. In this work, the boys 
copied the Egyptian literature, both as exercises and 
for knowledge; and a considerable part of this litera- 
ture which has been recovered is preserved in these 
school-boy copies. 

Some of this was historic in character; some was 
poetic, including especial religious songs; and the first 
work which was read, " The instruction of Ptah- 
hotep " or Ptah-hept, related to moral and social 
duties. Since this work dates from the 5th or 6th 
Dynasty, it is doubtless the oldest extant pedagogic 
work, and one of its translators calls it " Le plus ancien 
livre du monde ". As a more advanced part of their 
literary work, boys were required also to compose on 
subjects and according to models of style that were 
furnished to them; and Schmidt (i.218) gives a curious 
example of one of these essays which had been pre- 
sented, with the free and often slashing criticisms of 
the teacher thereon. 

As to the extent of Egyptian knowledge of architec- 
ture, sculpture, and engineering, we are not left to 
probable conjectures, nor even to the evidence of 
written records. Their great and enduring works in 
each of these departments bear the record of their 
skill, testifying also that the feeling for the beautiful 



REWARDS OF LEARNING 67 

was not developed in an equal degree with that for the 
sublime, since they excel not so much in beauty as in 
size, strength, and proportion of parts. 

So also their skill in preparing colors, in making 
glass and porcelain, and in embalming the bodies of 
the dead, shows that they had some practical knowledge- 
of chemistry. All these arts must have been improved 
and perpetuated through instruction, so that we may 
infer with a considerable degree of probability that 
some of them at least were taught in the higher schools, 
though some may have been learned by apprenticeship, 
which is but another sort of instruction. 

Other higher subjects were afforded in geometry, 
elementary trigometry, and astronomy, which the 
necessities of Egyptian life arising from the annual 
overflows of the Nile, caused to be early studied and 
applied for the preservation or restoration of landmarks. 

In astronomy, especially, their knowledge was singu- 
larly extensive; and from them the Greeks probably 
derived their first impulse to the study of this science, 
as also of geometry. With astronomy they gained also 
the practice of astrology, believing as they did in the 
influence of the heavenly bodies on the fate of men; 
and Europe practised this inheritance from Egypt un- 
til comparatively recent times. 

Their knowledge of medicine had in very early days 
become very considerable, and had been divided into 
specialties, as is shown by the recently discovered 
medical " Papyrus Ebers ", which is ascribed to the 
16th century before Christ. There is however little 
apparent knowledge of physiology, which is not strange 
when we consider the religious regard with which the 



68 EGYPT 

Egyptians looked upon the human body; and the prac- 
tice of medicine was mingled with many superstitious 
observances. 

Geography, especially that of Egypt and the related 
countries, was well understood as early as the days of 
Moses; and it is not improbable that the treatises on 
geography and astronomy compiled in the 2d century 
A. D. by Ptolemy, a man of Egyptian birth, which 
were authoritative in Europe until the 15th century, 
drew their material partly from Egyptian as well as 
Grecian sources. 

That a knowledge of the laws, and a large amount 
of theological lore was also taught in the higher schools, 
may be inferred with a degree of probability amount- 
ing to certainty, not only from the fact that these 
schools were taught by the priests in the temples, but 
also because from them came forth the men who were 
to become magistrates, judges, and priests. Finally 
the Egyptian skill in drawing and painting is evi- 
denced by still existing illustrations in papyrus rolls. 

Since most of these subjects must have been matters 
of school instruction in its higher sense, we have evi- 
dence that these higher schools from an early period 
had the means for giving a kind of training whicii was 
approximately all-sided, — caring for the body by war- 
like gymnastics; for the intellect by a strenuous disci- 
pline in various studies fitted to call into active exercise 
all its powers; for the aesthetic sense, through poetry 
and music, through drawing, sculpture, and architec- 
ture; and for the moral and religious sentiment by 
maxims inculcated under the ever-present feeling of a 
future retribution, and by a strict discipline. 



LIBRARIES 69^ 

In regard to discipline, some interesting proofs have 
been preserved that in those early days in Egypt, as 
now in America, pupils were sometimes heedless or 
perverse, needed thrashing which they received, and 
ran into evil ways in drinking and carousing with bad 
companions. 

It is also worth our notice that the great religious 
festivals with their pompous ceremonies, their proces- 
sions, their music, and their songs; the vast temples 
built in honor of the deities under whose diverse forms 
the one God of the initiated was worshipped; and the 
often-recurring sacrifices and offerings made to the 
gods, — must have exerted a deeply educative influence, 
tending to elevate the souls of even the lowest and 
least tutored masses, and to make more real to them 
the fundamental Egyptian idea of future accounta 
bility. 

Finally amongst educational agencies, we must note 
the early existence of libraries in Egypt. It is said 
that more than 2,000 years B. C. there were collections 
of papyrus rolls of such importance as to warrant the 
appointment of high officials for their care. This 
statement is rendered highly probable by the well- 
known fact that in Alexandria under the Ptolemies, 
during the last centuries before the Christian era, it 
was found possible to accumulate a vast library, which 
numbered 700,000 volumes when it was finally de- 
stroyed by fire during the confusion of the 7th century 
A. D. ; and it is difficult to see whence these numerous 
volumes could have been obtained before the invention 
of printing, had not considerable collections long 
existed in Egypt. 



70 EGYPT 

What our present culture owes probably to ancient 
Egyptian suggestions has already been mentioned, — 
viz. in astronomy and geography, in the mathematical 
sciences, and in medicine, the cultivation of which by 
the monks in the middle ages reminds us not only of 
its Egyptian origin but of the class by whom it was 
pursued in Egypt. Some of the greatest men named 
in Grecian history, Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato, 
beyond any reasonable doubt, were considerably influ- 
enced by Egyptian learning in their ideas of science, 
philosophy and government. Moses, learned in all 
the wisdom of the Egyptians, became the lawgiver of 
Israel; and it seems not unnatural to suppose that 
some results of a learning, so analagous in many re- 
spects to the spirit of the Jewish faith, should appear 
in the system of laws which bears his name. 

The ancient Egyptian learning quite largely inspired 
the University of Alexandria, in which were trained 
many of the fathers of the early Christian church; 
and it is possible that some ideas of early Egyptian 
origin still cling to theology, and that too, without 
serious detriment to its character. Some writers in- 
deed, and especially Renouf in the last of his lectures 
on the " Religion of Ancient Egypt ", deny that Egypt 
influenced either Hebrews or Greeks; but the a priori 
probability that a highly civilized race would exert 
influence on races with which it was brought in con- 
. tact is too great to be negatived by other than weighty 
proofs, even if the internal evidences of coincidences 
in ideas, doctrines, and regulations were left quite out 
of view. We shall, I believe, not be liable to err 
greatly in ascribing to the education and civilization 



PAPYRUS 71 

of Egypt a very considerable and pervasive influence 
on more modern nations, and in looking to their sub- 
jects and methods of education and instruction as one 
of the historic beginnings of what we at present enjoy. 
But whatever view we may entertain upon this point, 
there cannot but be an unfailing interest attached to 
the revelations that have recently been made to us of 
the high views of life and duty held by the ancient 
Egyptians, of their pedagogical ideas embodied after 
the oriental manner in maxims and proverbs, of their 
praises of wisdom and the motives to the attainment 
of high learning which are presented, and even of the 
kind of stories with which the youth of Egypt were 
regaled so many centuries ago : of all which specimens 
may be found in the volumes of " Eecords of the Past ". 
Finally, we should not pass over in silence an Egyp- 
tian art which was of great significance for the future 
of learning, and this was the art of making paper 
from the thin inner layers of the papyrus, a large 
plant of the sedge family. This art was early invented 
by them — the extended Ebers papyrus that has before 
been mentioned containing internal evidence that it is 
3,500 years old; — their treaties, songs, and rituals, 
were written on long sheets of this fabric with an im- 
perishable red or black ink whose base was carbon; and 
numbers of these productions, written in some one or 
more of the three characters that have been mentioned, 
have been preserved to our own days in the sepulchres 
of this ancient race. Papyrus was also much used 
amongst the classical nations, and to a considerable 
extent in Europe during the middle ages until the 10th 
or 11th century, when it was gradually replaced by 



72 EGYPT 

parchment, and finally by paper made from cotton and 
linen fibre. That this use of the papyrus fibre as a 
writing material, originating in Egypt, was transmitted 
thence to the Western nations; and that there, when 
the papyrus became scarce and dear, it suggested the 
employment of other kinds of fibre for the same pur- 
pose, are facts that are not questioned by those who 
doubt the influence of Egypt in other respects. 

REFEREJ^CES FOR THE STUDEI^T 

Schmidt. — Gescliiclite der PMagogik, 4th Ed., Vol. I. 

Records of the Past. 12 vols, already published. 
Renouf. — The Religion of Ancient Egypt. 
Rawlinson. — Religions of the Ancient World. C. I (Humboldt 
Library, 62). 

Wilkinson. — The Ancient Egyptians. 

Prof. Georg Ebers. — Uarda, and An Egyptian Princess. 

Adolf Erman. — Life in Ancient Egypt. 



CHAPTEE IV 

OKIENTAL EDUCATION — PEKSIA — PHCENICIA 

The education of ancient Persia, as it has been de- 
scribed to us by Herodotus and Xenophon, may be 
styled an Active National System directed to foreign 
conquest. It would perhaps be more accurately de- 
scriptive to call it state education, prescribed and 
directed by the state for the aristocratic ruling class 
in the Persian state, with the aim of making this class 
warlike citizens, trained to unquestioning obedience 
and loyalty to the absolute sovereign who was the 
state personified, and before whom all ranks faded into 
insignificance. The masses of the people were mere 
instruments of arbitrary power, and received no edu- 
cation save that given by the family in employments 
chiefly agricultural, or imbedded through the religious 
faith and observances of the people. So, too, the 
nations conquered and made tributary to Persia during 
the few centuries of its career of conquest, were 
never incorporated with Persia; but while made aux- 
iliaries in war and tributaries at all times, were left 
mainly to the operation of their own customs and in- 
stitutions, under the rule of Persian satraps. Thus 
the Persian education was of and for the Persian state. 
It was active and warlike, not only as an expression of 
the character of a hardy and energetic race inhabiting 
a rugged country, but as the expression also of a fun- 
damental religious idea. 

(73) 



74 



PERSIA 




Zoroaster. 1000? 



U. C. 



Zoroastriaaism, the religion of Persia, regarded life 
as a continuous warfare, 
teaching that man must 
fight always on the side of 
Ormuzd, the king of light 
and personification of all 
good, to aid his ultimate 
victory over Ahriman, the 
spirit of evil typified by 
darkness. When therefore 
the Persian successfully 
struggled against his evil 
inclinations and maintained a stern integrity; when he 
exterminated beasts of prey and carefully guarded 
useful domestic animals; when he converted deserts 
and rugged heights into fruitful fields and smiling 
pastures; when he dug new wells, or made a better 
use of old water-courses in promoting fertility, he was 
making a good fight against the spirit of evil, and 
bringing nearer the triumphant reign of the King of 
Light whom he adored with a fire never to be extin- 
guished. 

An education inspired by such an idea and which 
associated religion with warlike activity, when the 
nation had grown strong by the practice of hardy vir- 
tues, readily lent itself to that career of foreign con- 
quest which for a time made Persia the master of the 
Eastern world. 

In the Persian system, extreme emphasis was laid on 
the physical and moral training of boys, " since on their 
education it was seen that the welfare and perpetuity 
of the state depended." This was concisely stated J3y 



PHYSICAL AND MORAL EDTCATIOX 75 

Herodotus in the oft-quoted expression that the boys 
were taught to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth, 
the first and second of which briefly indicated their 
physical training for their usual mode of fighting as 
cavalry; the third as succinctly symbolizes moral edu- 
cation under that virtue which is the basis of all char- 
acter in its recognition of all acts and things in their 
true aspects, and in rigid adherence to known realities. 
Indeed, according to the idea of Zoroaster, whilst 
truth is the supreme virtue, lying and fraud are the 
greatest sins against the omniscient God of Light; and 
the very name of lie was the special appellation of 
Ahriman, the spirit of evil, even as in the Scriptures 
Satan is called the father of lies. Grote (c. 33) says 
that " even to buy and sell was accounted disgraceful 
among the Persians, a sentiment which they defended 
by saying that both the one and the other imposed the 
necessity of telling falsehood." 

Xenophon, who had become acquainted with Persia 
through aiding as a leader of mercenaries the revolt of 
the younger Cyrus against his brother, the King of 
Persia, the disastrous result of which revolt and the re- 
treat of the Greeks he has immortalized in the Anabasis, 
— was strongly attached to the ancient Persian cus- 
toms by their analogy with those of Sparta, which he 
seems greatly to have admired. Hence, in the first 
book of the Cyropoedia, a kind of historic romance, he 
gives an account of Persian education as he conceived 
it, in the training of the Elder Cyrus, who took Baby- 
lon, in the time of the prophet Daniel, 538 B. C. 

From his description, it is obvious that the physical 
education given by the state was truly Spartan in its 



76 PEESIA 

rigor. The food and drink of the boys were of the 
simplest kind, bread and cresses to eat and water to 
drink; or when on hunting excursions, their sole food 
might be acorns and wild fruits. One is forced to dis- 
believe this dietary as not sufficiently nourishing to 
produce vigorous men. 

They were hardened to endure exposure and hard- 
ships by early rising, by night watches, and by much, 
sleeping in the open air. From the age of six years 
they were habituated to all kinds of martial exercises, 
to archery, to hurling missile weapons, and to the 
management of horses. After the age of sixteen they 
kept guard in the city or in strongholds, did such 
police duty as required agility, courage, and discretion, 
and often hunted fierce wild beasts in the company of 
their king, to cultivate hardihood and ready self-pos- 
session. Personal cleanliness, as well as dexterity and 
endurance, was also insisted on in physical education 
as a religious duty, since purity of the person betok- 
ened reverence for the spirit of light and purity. 

The moral education, which was inculcated by the 
example of their elders not less than by precept, and 
thus was objective in its nature, was impressed by a 
continual practice of the virtues that were emphasized 
as of vital importa^nce. Thus although truthfulness 
was considered absolutely fundamental, implicit obedi- 
ence to elders or superiors was made hardly less impor- 
tant. Simplicity, modesty, temperance, and self-con- 
trol were strongly emphasized. Ingratitude in the 
boy was punished with especial severity, since, says 
Xenophon, "the Persians think that the ungrateful 
can love neither gods nor parents, neither native coun- 



GRATITUDE, JUSTICE 77 

try nor friends, because with ingratitude is ever con- 
nected a shamelessness which is the source of all vices. " 

Great care was taken to develop in the boys a keen 
sense of 'justice, to which end their judgment was 
exercised in deciding 3ases in which this virtue was in 
volved. Xenophon illustrates this method of learning 
by doing, in the case of Cyrus, who was soundly 
thrashed for deciding in the case of a big boy with a 
coat that was too small, who had forcibly made ex- 
change with a small boy whose coat was too large, that 
the affair was just since both boys were better fitted 
by the forced exchange. The question, said the teach- 
er as he thrashed the young prince, was not whom the 
coats best fitted, but to whom they rightfully belonged. 

Thus, according to Xenophon, the Persians strove to 
prevent crime and injustice by eradicating the inclina- 
tion to them through a suitable education early begun 
and thoroughly ingrained by careful practice, — an ex- 
ample so enlightened as to be wholly worthy of imita- 
tion by modern nations, and especially in the case of 
neglected children, who are peculiarly exposed to 
temptations to wrong-doing. 

The places for instruction at the capital were "at 
the king's gate ", that is, in the open court before the 
royal residence; in other cities, they were in 'open 
squares or porticoes, where the elders taught the boys, 
and the mature men the youths. Nothing is said by 
Xenophon of any literary or theoretic education, and 
it is questionable whether any was generally given, 
unless the stories and poetic delineations of gods and 
of the great deeds of heroes, which are known to have 



78 pp:rsia 

been used to inspire the youth to virtue and heroism, 
should be dignified as literary education. 

Not that literary culture was lacking in Persia in the 
day of its power. On the contrary, true to their class 
spirit, they had in the magi a class set apart for the 
persuit of learning who were versed in all the learning 
of their times; who studied and expounded the sacred 
writings, and were skilled in medicine and astronomy, 
in law and finance; who were counsellors of kings and 
governors in all cases of ditiflculty; and to whom was 
quite probably due whatever of skill in administration 
signalized Persia when its dominion was most extended. 
This class is said to have numbered about 80,000, a 
nnmber which was possibly proportioned to the literary 
needs of a nation wholly devoted to agriculture and 
foreign conquest. 

Their relation to the remaining classes of the state 
bears some resemblances to that of the clergy in the 
middle ages to the warlike nobles and ignorant multi- 
tudes of Europe. A farther resemblance to the middle 
ages may also be found in the care with which the 
high-born youth were trained to religious observances, 
to the manly virtues of truth, justice, and modesty, 
to noble deportment and brave but courteous behavior, 
— all which cannot but strongly remind us of chivalry. 

It will be obvious that in the care of the Persians 
for the physical training of a favored class, and for the 
inculcation of certain hardy virtues chiefly fitting for 
loyalty and a warlike career, no emphasis however 
slight was laid on intellectual culture; and that there 



AN INSUFFICIENT EDUCATION 79 

was an utter lack of care for the general elevation of 
the people. Their civilization, such as it was, was but 
skin deep. Placed too in a position which, as we shall 
presently see, was analogous to that of the Spartans, 
as a conquering race amid conquered peoples, as a class 
of aristocrats amid subject masses whom no effort was 
made either to conciliate or to elevate, — it was abso- 
lutely necessary for the maintainence of their polity 
that the ancient rigid system should at all times be 
kept up in the education of the ruling class. 

But in their career of conquest this system fell into 
neglect. Plato tells us (Laws B. 3, C. 12) that even 
the sons of Cyrus were corrupted by the influence of 
the eunuchs and women to whom their nurture was 
entrusted, and that the same was true of Xerxes, the 
son of the conqueror Darius. Thus it seems that an 
education suitable only for a career of war, was neg- 
lected when war arose; tlie ruling class which should 
have been the flower of the Persian hosts, having in 
themselves no intellectual resources for times of leisure, 
fell but too readily into the luxurious and sensual 
habits of the conquered nations; and the ignorant 
masses, long used to the despotic sway of masters who 
forced them to shed their blood in war but bestowed 
on them no compensating care, lost all patriotic inter- 
est in the preservation of a government which they 
knew only by the burdens that were imposed on them. 
Hence this vast empire fell to pieces at the mere touch* 
of Alexander's spear; and is chiefly useful to us as a 
warning against a system of education so one-sided in its 
range, so restricted in its extension, and so liable to be 
neglected on the occurrence of the very exigences for 



80 



PHCENICIA 




Georg Ebers, 1837-li 



which exclusively it fitted. 
In concluding this ac- 
count of early Persian edu- 
cation, I cannot forbear to 
call attention to the charm- 
ing romance, "An Egyptian 
Princess" by Prof. Georg 
Ebers, which presents a pic- 
ture of Persian life in the 
days of Cambyses that is 
unquestionably as trust- 
worthy as any that can now be drawn. 

Plicenicia 

The fact of the existence and activity of the Phoeni- 
cians, although they have long since vanished from the 
earth, is of great interest to the history of civilization 
and education. Inhabiting a narrow strip of territory 
along the east end of the Mediterranean whose most 
famous cities were Tyre and Sidon, with an area that 
never exceeded 2,000 square miles, and incited to mari- 
time enterprise as well by their position as by native 
character, — they made themselves famous throughout 
the ancient world by the vast extent and variety of 
their trade, by their numerous colonies stretching 
along the Mediterranean even to Spain, by their visits 
to parts hitherto unknown, amongst which were Eng- 
land and probably the Cape of Good Hope (Grote, 
Part 2d, Chap. 18), and also by their skill in many 
useful- arts, such as weaving, dyeing, glass-making, 
mining, and metallurgy. They seem to have attained 
the acme of their power about 1000 B. C. in the time 
of Solomon, whom they materially aided in building 



MOEALLY DEPRAVED 81 

and adorning the the temple (I. Kings, Chaps. 5, 7, 
and 9), and with whom they joined in commercial 
ventures to Ophir and Tarshish (I. Kings, Chap. 10). 
Four centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel (Chaps. 27 
and 28) describes in vivid poetic language the vast 
riches, the enormous extent of trade, and the pride 
and wickedness of Tyre and Sidon, and predicts their 
downfall as a consequence of their sins. 

Yet great as was once their power, they long ago 
vanished from the earth; their language was forgotten 
before the second Christian century; whatever of lit- 
erature they may once have possessed, disappeared be- 
fore the advent of Christ, and is now known only from 
scanty but widely scattered inscriptions; and they 
are remembered only from the casual and- unintended 
results of their restless activity. 

Their educational system, which was doubtless an 
active national one of an industrial type, can be made 
out only by reasonable inference from what is known 
of their character and history. Throughout their 
career they were known not only for their commercial 
enterprise and their skill in arts and trades, but also 
for their moral depravity. They are described as cruel 
and sensual, lying and hypocritical, crafty, treacher- 
ous, and wholly untrustworthy. Punic faith, a term 
applied to one of their colonies, became a synonym 
for treachery. The very rites of their religion were 
cruel and bloody; and especially the offering of their 
children on the fiery altars of their gods was admir- 
ably adapted to destroy all family ties, and to train for 
a career of merciless adventure. 

Apart from these detestable traits, they were quick 



82 PHCENICIA 

of perception, ingenious in adaptation and improve- 
ment, and seemingly also inventive. They readily 
caught up the arts and knowledge of the lands to 
which they traded, Egypt amongst the number; what 
they found in a rude state, they often improved; and 
sometimes they probably invented what was more 
suitable to their use as traders. 

Their great service to the cause of culture was 
doubtless performed by disseminating in all lands that 
they visited some knowledge of the sciences and arts 
that were native in any one. Thus it was with the 
knowledge of astronomy derived from Egypt and the 
East, and which they used in their voyages. Thus it 
was with the art industries and with such handicraft 
as the Egyptian weaving and glass-making; and with 
mining and metallurgy, which they probably improved, 
if they did not invent them. Thus it was with the 
knowledge of weights, measures, and money, which, 
derived from Egypt or Mesopotamia where they had 
very early been devised, the Phoenicians spread over 
Europe. 

Most significant of all, it seems to be exceedingly 
difficult to trace the use of an alphabet representing 
only sounds, farther back than Phoenicia. In his 
"Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script" 
(London, 1895), Arthur J. Evans says: 

" The Cretan pictographs give us a good warrant for 
believing — what even without such evidence common 
sense would lead us to expect — that a primitive system 
of picture-writing had existed in the JEgean lands at 
a very remote period. The antiquity of these figures 
is indeed in some cases curiously brought out by the 



INVENTION OF THE ALPHABET 83 

fact, already pointed out, that they actually exhibit 
the actions of a primitive gesture-language. Further- 
more we see certain ideographic forms, no doubt' once 
widely intelligible on the coasts and islands of the 
eastern Mediterranean, reduced to linear signs which 
find close parallels in Cyprus and Phoenicia. Finally, 
some of the names of the Phoenician letters lead us 
back to the same pictographic originals which in Crete 
we find actually existing. 

"To the Phoenicians belongs the credit of having 
finally perfected this system and reduced it to a purely 
alphabetic shape. Their acquaintance with the vari- 
ous forms of Egyptian writing no doubt assisted them 
in their final development. Thus it happened that it 
was from a Semitic source and under a Semitic guise 
that the Greeks received their alphabet in later day." 

It may easily seem more probable that an ingenious 
and practical people, little hampered by any theoretic 
views, and intent solely on subserving their own con- 
venience, should devise, possibly from Egyptian sug- 
gestions, such an improvement and labor-saving con- 
trivance as a purely phonic alphabet, — rather than 
some learned nation, inured and wedded to their sys- 
tem of representing ideas, no matter how incon- 
venient; possibly even counting its inconvenience as 
part of the settled order of things; always so intent 
rather on ideas than on their symbols as to be little 
likely to think of any change in the symbols; and 
withal, apt to dread the work of learning new symbols, 
and the confusion likely to ensue on any considerable 
change therein. Bear witness the results of efforts to 
reform our grotesque English alphabet which strives 



84 PHCENICIA 

to represent about forty ditt'erent sounds by twenty-six 
characters, of which some have no distinct office, and 
several more may on occasion do duty for some others. 
For our own purpose, however, the origin of the 
phonic alphabet is not important; the fact of its 
diffusion by Phoenician means admits of no rational 
doubt. 

Whether it is true or not that the Greeks derived 
from Phoenicia their first ideas and hints in the fine 
arts, in which later they achieved such wonderful ex- 
cellency, it is certain that a thousand years before 
Christ t-he Pha^nicians had become noted for their 
skill in the decorative arts as well as in construction. 
Hence Solomon engaged their services in the building 
of the temple; and the Tyrian artist Hiram, a man 
■"filled with wisdom and understanding, and cunning 
to work all work in brass ", did the remarkable decora- 
tive work which is described in the 7th chapter of 1st 
Kings. 

It has already been said that from the lack of Phoe- 
nician records we can know nothing directly of their 
educational history; but from the account of them 
that has just been given, we are evidently justified in 
making certain obvious inferences, as to the state of 
their knowledge, and as to the means by which it must 
have been transmitted from generation to generation. 
It is obvious that the inventors of the alphabet must have 
known how to read and write, and must have taught 
these arts to their children; that they who devised 
an art of reckoning, so needful to traders, in which 
alphabetic characters were used numerically, must by 
some means have taught this to their successors; that 



EDUCATION" FOR TRADERS 85 

they must have understood, and in some way have 
taught to their offspring, the sciences and arts which 
for centuries they successfully practised and often im- 
proved, and a knowledge of which they diffused so 
widely in their incessant trading expeditions; and that 
their moral schooling, in regard to which we are not 
left entirely to inferences, must have been of peculiarly 
depraved character, to perpetuate from age to age the 
unlovely traits by which the race was long distin- 
guished. Instruction, teachers, and schools of some 
kiud, therefore there must have been form many things 
whilst others were probably taught in the practical 
school of apprenticeship. 

Their utter destruction as a race may teach us what 
are likely to be the ultimate effects on national char- 
acter and fate of a mere industrial education, directed 
solely 'to material prosperity, and sanctified by no 
higher aims, and what must be the deplorable results 
on morals of a training intended merely to make suc- 
cessful traders. 



CHAPTER V 

ORIENTAL EDUCATIOJi — THE ISRAELITES 

The Israelitish government, education, and civiliza- 
tion, were all based on one dominant and prevailing 
monotheistic idea. There is one great, creative, all- 
prevading, and omniscient Intelligence, perfect in 
every attribute, and desiring from His creatures an 
approximation to His own perfections. His law is the 
supreme rule of the universe, and before Him and His 
law there can be no distinction of rank, for all men 
are equal. To know and act in accord with His will 
is the highest duty of man. Hence God was their 
king, earthly monarchs being granted only in anger at 
their distrust of their real ruler. Thus the government 
was founded on the revealed will of God, the funda- 
mental points of which were expressed in the Deca- 
logue; and, in the Mosaic code, were expanded and 
applied to all the circumstances and relations of life. 

Their educaton has at all periods laid great empha- 
sis on impressing the will of God, which is the expres- 
sion of man's best and most enlightened will, and on 
securing in conduct due conformity to this will; hence 
hence it is rightly called theocratic education. 

Amongst the people of Israel there was always ex- 
pressed a high estimate of children, of education, and 
of the teacher. The Scriptures abound in passages 
illustrating this which are too familiar to require repe- 

(86) 



HIGH KEGAED FOR THE TEACHER 87 

tition. The Jewish Talniad interprets the passages of 
Scripture that speak of flowers and gardens as meaning 
children and schools. "Do not touch mine anointed 
ones and do my prophets no harm," it applies to school 
children as the anointed ones, and to teachers as the 
prophets. 

"The world is saved only by the breath of the 
school children," says the Talmund, — a vivid expres- 
sion of the mighty influence of national education on 
national life; and again, "Study is more meritorious 
than sacrifice." " You should revere the teacher even 
more than your father. The latter only brought you 
into this world; the former indicates the way into the 
next; but blessed is the son who has learned from his 
father; he shall revere him both as his father and his 
master; and blessed is the father who has instructed 
his son." 

The Talmund tells a pretty story illustrating the 
high regard for the office of the teacher. There was 
once a great drought during which the greatest and 
most pious men prayed vainly for rain. Then ap- 
peared a humble and insignificant-looking personage 
who also prayed for rain; and straightway the clouds 
gathered, the heavens were darkened, and rain fell 
abundantly. "Who are you?" asked the astonished 
people. "lam," he answered, "a teacher of little 
children." Let it be recalled that God himself is 
represented in the Bible as becoming the teacher of 
the Hebrews, and that Christ was the Great Teacher 
of mankind; and the kindly command "Suffer the 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven," was but the 



88 THE HEBREWS 

divine embodiment of a sentiment common to the He- 
brew race. 

It is needful to distinguish two periods in the his- 
tory of Hebrew education. During the centuries 
which intervened between the days of Moses and the 
Babylonian captivity, we are assured by the learned 
Hebraist, Emanual Deutsch, that there was in the 
Hebrew tongue no word answering to school, whilst 
later fully a dozen were in common use. 

This fact points significantly to the dividing line in 
the form of their education. Up to the time of the 
captivity, the education of children was carried on 
wholly in the family, and the parents were the teach- 
ers. This family education was dominantly moral and 
religious, and its subjects and methods are adundantly 
shown in the Hebrew Scriptures. They were the great 
history of the Hebrew people, and of God's dealings 
with it; the precepts of their religion; and the rites 
and observances of their Law, of which none were 
perijiitted to be ignorant. 

That reading and writing were also commonly im- 
parted, may be inferred with some degree of probabil- 
ity from a passage m the 11th chapter of Deuteronomy 
which says, "Therefore ye shall lay up these my 
words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them 
for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as front- 
lets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your 
children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine 
house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou 
liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt 
write them upon the door-posts of thine house and 
upon thy gates," etc. 



FiKST period; parental 89 

The direction in this passage, which is a general 
one to write the Divine words upon door-posts and 
gates, would obviously be meaningless to a race that 
could neither read nor write; and it was quite possibly 
interpreted in the best days of the early Hebrew polity 
as an indirect command to parents to teach these ele- 
ments of learning. This passage is also significant as 
indicating the method of instruction, since it is a 
command to fathers to teach their children their duties 
on all convenient occasions by word of mouth and by 
example. 

To multiply the occasions for these parental instruc- 
tions in religious duty and national history, and to add 
emphasis to the lessons thus given by making them 
objective, most effective means were afforded by the 
weekly recurring Sabbaths, and by the several great 
national festivals. Especially the great Feasts were a 
most impressive educational agency, commemorating 
as they did the Divine presence and care in the most 
interesting events of Hebrew history ; in the Passover, 
the deliverance from Egyptian bondage; in the Pente- 
cost, the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai ; in the 
Feast of Tabernacles, the prolonged wanderings in the 
wilderness. On the recurrence of each of these anni- 
versaries, parents were enjoined to explain their signifi- 
cance in answer to the natural inquiries of thir chil- 
dren after the meaning of so singular ceremonies. 

Let us take as an example Exodus xii.26, where in- 
stituting the Passover, it is said, "and it shall come 
to pass when your children shall say unto you, what 
mean ye by this service ? that ye shall say, it is the 
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the 



90 THE HEBREWS 

houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he 
smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses." 
Again in Deuteronomy vi. 20 this duty of parental 
instruction on the occasion of festivals and other 
ceremonies is much more fully enjoined and made 
general; and in Joshua iv. 5, we find an occasion 
seized for establishing a visible memorial .which should 
attract the attention of children, and give opportunity 
for parental explanation. It is worthy of passing re- 
mark in this connection, that as the times of these 
great festivals were fixed by astronomical events, they 
made essential a certain elementary but important 
knowledge of astronomy. 

During this early period, as throughout all portions 
of Hebrew history, the Divine command to honor 
father and mother was not permitted to become an idle 
injunction. Obedience and reverence to parents, of 
which their fathers had witnessed the salutary effects 
in Egypt, were strictly enforced. 

A number of passages in the Proverbs of Solomon 
show also that the rod was valued as a means of en- 
forcing discipline. In the " Wisdom of Jesus, Son of 
Sirach ", written in the second century before the 
Christian era, and which deserves to be ranked with 
the Proverbs as a Jewish treatise of pedagogy, we find 
frequent injunctions to children to reverence and sup- 
port their parents, and to parents to teach their chil- 
dren, to enforce early obedience, and to chasten them 
with the rod when refractory. The 3d and the 30th 
chapters of this book will be found especially emphatic 
in this respect. 

After the return from the Babylonian captivity, 536 



SECOND period; SCHOOLS 91 

B. C, schools make their appearance in Judea, with 
words in the language to designate them, some of which 
were derived from the Greek, others poetically de- 
scriptive of their arrangement, from the Aramaic* 

Here then begins what we have called the Second 
Period of Hebrew education. Probably the Israelites, 
during their sojourn in Babylon, in which Daniel and 
some others of their number had gained great eminence 
through learning and wisdom, had caught up the idea 
of schools from those existing in that country for 
priests and the privileged classes. Amongst the He- 
brews there were no privileged classes, since all were 
equal before God; hence whatever instruction was 
given was open equally to all. 

Up to 220 B. C, the scribes, as guardians and ex- 
pounders of Scriptures, were the instructors of the 
people and teachers of the schools. After this period 
for four hundred years, a class called Learners and 
Master Builders arose as teachers; and, during all the 
changes and confusions of that troubled period, — the 
successive conquests, the revolts, the destruction of 
the Holy City, and the final expulsion from Palestine, 
we are assured by Deutsch that the schools taught by 
these devoted men were never suffered to be seriously 
interrupted. "The Law," as the great subject-mat- 
ter was called, " flowed on, and was perpetuated in the 
face of a thousand deaths." 

If such was the case, and the evidence of the Eab- 
binical writings on this point is said to be clear, it 
evinces a devotion to the training of the young un- 
parrallelled save in the later annals of the same tena- 

* E. Deutsch. 



92 THE HEBREWS 

cious Hebrew race itself; which amidst the confusion 
and dense ignorance of the middle ages, subjected to 
incessant persecutions and intolerable oppression, never 
once suffered the knowledge of Hebrew learning and 
the traditions of family training to die out ; and which, 
during those same ages of darkness, could point in 
northern Africa and Spain to many Jews as amongst 
the most learned expounders and wisest promoters of 
the higher learning. Here we shall meet them again 
when their own history has become inextricably 
mingled with that of other peoples. 

In Palestine, eighty years before Christ, education 
was even made compulsory, and again in 64 A. D., 
every town was enjoined to support a school. For 
these schools and for public education, which even 
after the downfall of Jerusalem, continued to flourish 
until the 11th century in various parts of the east and 
especially in Babylonia, the regulations were very com- 
prehensive and minute. The sites for schools, the ap- 
proaches to them, the age of pupils, the numbers per 
teacher, the character of the teacher, who was required 
to be married; the nature of his discipline, in which 
mildness and patience are enjoined ; the duties of par- 
ents in respect to preparation and supervision of tlieir 
children and cooperation with the school; the subjects 
and methods of study, — all receive due attention in 
these school regulations. 

The subjects taught, many of which were obviously 
confined exclusively to the higher schools, were, next 
to the law, ethics, history, grammar, medicine, mathe- 
matics, astronomy, natural history, jurisprudence; and 
some languages, of which the Aramaic, the spoken 



COUESE OF STUDY 93 

language of Judea in the time of Christ, and the 
Greek which had become the French of those times, 
were naturally the chief. It is said even to have been 
common to teach Greek to girls. This list of subjects 
given by Deutsch on the authority of the Rabbinical 
writings, is certainly a generous one, although doubt- 
less the extent of the instruction given in several of 
these branches might easily be overrated. 

In regard to method, " some of the chief principles 
laid down were, fundamental grounding, elementary 
material teaching, and constant repetition." The end 
of learning is doing, says the Talmud. The judicious- 
ness of these principles so far as they extend, will 
hardly be questioned at the present day. We are 
assured that in the higher schools intellectual activity 
prevailed, and that the method answering thereto was 
by questions, brisk debate and discussion, and close 
investigation. Masters of the laws were held in great 
respect; and this was true however humble their call- 
ing, since all honest labor was held in honor. It is 
told that a newly-elected president of a college was 
found all grimy in the midst of his charcoal mounds, 
by those who came to announce his appointment to 
high educational position. In these days, we should 
be little likely to seek among charcoal burners for men 
of great eminence in polite learning. 

In this account of Hebrew education, I have said 
nothing of the early prophets like Samuel, Elijah, and 
Elisha, whose function as teachers of the people was 
evidently more analogous to that of our modern preach- 
ers of religion than to that of teachers of youth; nor 
has mention been made of those collections or guilds 



94 THE HEBREWS 

of good young men in training for the prophetic office, 
which have been termed " schools of the prophets ". 
Teachers of youth, in the sense in which the term is 
ordinarily used, the prophets certainly were not, and 
it is probable also that the priests never were; and it 
has not seemed expedient in this brief sketch, to lay 
emphasis upon their educative influence on the national 
life, considerable as it doubtless was through rousing 
the consciences of parents and elders. 

It would not however be fitting to conclude an ac- 
count of Hebrew pedagogy without directing marked 
attention to the Great Teacher who appeared amongst 
the Jews in the fullness of time, and to His teachings 
as narrated in the Gospels, which merely in their ped- 
agogic aspect present the noblest models for popular 
instruction that can anywhere be found. They evince 
the Divine Teacher in their entire method; since they 
give a new and deeper meaning to familiar maxims 
and expressions; condescend to the stand-point of the 
experience of the humblest in expressing the most sub- 
lime virtues; and illustrate abtruse doctrines by 
methods purely objective in a way that the wisest 
teachers may well imitate without hoping ever to 
equal. The principles of pedagogic method which the 
keenest intellects of modern times have long been 
striving to establish in school practice, were exempli- 
fied ages ago in Palestine in their perfect form by Jesus 
of Nazareth. 

REFERENCES 
The Bible, Old Testament and Gospels; The Talmud, or the 
Collected Works of Emanuel Deutsch, Article, "The Talmud"; 
K. Schmidt, Geschichte der Padagogik Vol. 1; Dr. Dittes, Schule 
der Padagogik, Part 4; Report of U. S. Commissioner of Educa- 
tion, 1870, p. 359, etc. 



CHAPTER VI 

GREEK EDUCATION — SPARTA 

It should be borne in mind at the outset that no one 
is now in a position to give an account of Greek educa- 
tion as a whole. Indeed there was no system of edu- 
cation, embracing many like characteristics, that was 
common to the many petty states into which what we 
know as Greece was divided. These states differed 
widely in many important traits of character, in forms 
of political and social polity, and even in the dialects 
which they used of their common language. Though 
their periodical national games, celebrated in common, 
formed a loose bond of union, and though, impelled by 
common dangers, they sometimes entered into alliances 
for national objects, yet they were frequently brought 
into hostile contact by real or supposed conflict of rival 
interests. Hence there was, in no real sense of the 
term, a Greek nationality; and from the diiferences of 
character and of social polity which existed in the sev- 
eral states, we should naturally expect that, with the 
probable exception of warlike gymnastics and the com- 
mon heroic songs, there would be wide divergences 
in what they would emphasize in the training given 
to their youth. This expectation is fully realized in 
the case of the two prominent states, Sparta and 
Athens, about whose educational systems only we have 
any considerable information. These systems, as we 
shall see, might well be called polar opposites. 

(95) 



96 GREECE 

Again, the education given in these two best known 
Greek states, which was doubtless in the respect now 
to be named tN^pical of all the rest, was by no means 
a general education. It was strictly confined to the 
citizen class, which was in most cases but a small min- 
ority. For example, in Athenian Attica in the times 
of Pericles, there are said to 'have been 20,000 male 
citizens and 400,000 slaves, a condition of population 
which was fully parallelled in the state over which the 
Spartans bore sway. The citizen education in Sparta 
included in its scope both sexes, being in some respects 
well-nigh identical for both, whilst in others it had 
regard for the different spheres of activity of the man 
and woman. In Athens, women, limted to a life of 
domestic seclusion, were mostly excluded from the 
benefits of that large culture the results of which have 
given fame to this city. This is obviously another 
important limitation to the generality of education, 
shutting out from its benefits one-half of even the 
small favored class. 

Although Athenian education treated man as an 
individual, inasmuch as it aimed at a complete develop- 
ment of all the powers and capabilities with which man 
is endowed, and inasmuch as it regarded individual 
differences of capacity, — approximating in these re- 
spects to the Humanitarian type, still the Athenian, 
like the Greek in general, did not gain his importance 
by virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member 
of his state, as a citizen; aud to the skilful perform- 
ance of his duties as a citizen, his education, however 
individual it might appear, bore almost exclusive refer- 
ence. The idea of the independent worth of the in- 



EDUCATION- FOR CITIZENSHIP 97 

dividual man seems never to have been fully conceived 
by the Greek mind, as it must have been by the Egyp- 
tian; nor was there such significance in the home life, 
the life of the family, as amongst the Hebrews, since 
in Athens the secluded and subordinate position of 
women forbade this, while in Sparta the men and boys 
ate at a common table and not at home, and were re- 
garded as belonging to the state and not to the house- 
hold. Hence Greek education was thoroughly national 
in its general type. 

In Sparta, this type was modified, as well by the 
character of the race as by their circumstances, to 
adapt them for dominion at home and for conquest 
abroad, and hence was similar to the Persian education 
already described, though not by reason of the same 
fundamental religious idea. In Athens, since an all- 
sided development was provided for in a degree then 
unusual but with especial emphasis laid on taste^ — an 
emphasis indeed which well-nigh identified beauty and 
harmony with morality, the Athenian system of edu- 
cation has been styled the aesthetic individual variety 
of the national type ; and this seems to me to be fairly 
descriptive of its most prominent characteristics. 

Let us then bear in mind, that though in the Greek 
character there was a strong religious element which 
gives color to their art and to many of their usages, 
still the idea which dominates in their lives, and which 
finds expression in their educational systems, was the 
idea of citizenship in a certain kind of state, — warlike 
with little refinement in Sparta, — in Athens, ready for 
war yet equally ready in peace to mingle the enjoy- 



98 SPARTA 

ment of refined pleasures with the active duties of 
citizenship. 

Having now directed attention to some circumstances 
that seem needful for a correct understanding of Greek 
culture, and having signalized the controlling idea in 
their civilization and education with the different and 
most significant variations which it assumed in the two 
best-known Grecian states, let us examine more closely 
the special aims which Sparta and Athens proposed to 
themselves in the training of their youth, and the 
means by which they strove for the attainment of 
these aims. And first of Sparta. 

It has already been said that the Spartan system was 
exclusively national in character, and was shaped for 
a career of war and domination. This dominating 
and war-like character was in a measure impressed up- 
on them by their circumstances. They inhabited as 
conquerors the state of Laconia in the southern part 
of the Peloponnesus, to which subsequently they added 
by conquest some of the neighboring states. In their 
home state the Spartans were themselves a small 
minority, a warrior aristocracy, surrounded by a much 
more numerous subject population made up, in part 
of the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of 
the country, in part of persons enslaved in war. 

This subject population constituted the two classes 
called Perioeci and Helots. The Perioeci, or " dwell- 
ers around" Sparta, were free men, held lands for 
which they paid taxes or tribute to the Spartans, 
plied handicrafts, and did business as traders; but 
they had no political rights, nor were they permitted 
to intermarry with the Spartans. As a class, they 



PERIOECI; HELOTS 99 

were probably the intellectual superiors of their aris- 
tocratic lords; their trade gave them the culture which 
is derived from contact with other peoples, to which 
some circumstances mentioned by historians give us 
reason to think that many of them added a degree of 
intellectual culture to which the Spartans never at- 
tained. They are said to have peopled as many as a 
hundred cities, and Plutarch in his life of Lycurgus 
tells us that 30,000 allotments of land were made to 
them, whilst 9,000 were assigned to the Spartans near 
their capital city. They were excellent sailors, and 
also served in subordinate positions in the Spartan 
army. Such was one of the classes that were to be^ 
held in subordination. 

The Helots were serfs attached to the soil. Th^y 
served in the moat menial employments, and were 
subjected to the grossest indignities, being even made 
drunk by their masters as an example to the Spartan: 
youth of how beastly' a vice drunkenness is. They 
not only had no rights that any one was bound to re- 
spect, but they even held their lives at the caprice of 
their savage lords, who when their numbers increased 
alarmingly, thinned them out by the merciless slaughter 
of those who appeared most manly and robust, -^even 
making this murder of the Helots a sort of finish to 
the education of young men, a university course in a 
school of hard-heartedness. Plutarch, while properly 
reprobating this practice in a race which he evidently 
admired, takes pains to express his^ opinion that his 
hero Lycurgus never sanctioned by his laws a custom 
which he justly terms abominable. 

It is evident that a small ruling class which seema 
L.gFC. 



100 SPARTA 

never to have exceeded 9,000 families, surrounded by 
a much more numerous subordinate and servile popu- 
lation, none of whom they took any pains to concili- 
ate, and part of whom they treated with savage cruelty, 
had need to fit themselves to maintain their supremacy 
by the strong hand. And this they did. 

They ascribe the origin of their polity, with which 
their educational practice was closely interwoven and 
for which it prepared, to Lycurgus, who probably lived 
about 800 or 900 B. C. Its chief aim was to insure 
physical vigor, endurance, and dexterity, with such 
mental and moral qualities as sound judgment, cour- 
age, fortitude, temperance, and unquestioning obedi- 
ence, which allied with physical capability would adapt 
for a career of domination. 

To insure physical vigor, new-born children were 
examined by the elders of the tribe, and if they ap- 
peared feeble or mal-formed they were exposed to die 
in a place appointed for that purpose. Promising 
children were trained at home for the first seven years 
to have no childish fears and to exhibit no childish 
peevishness; and were subjected to a hardening disci- 
pline which even yet is sometimes claimed to promote 
vigor of body, but which may be suspected to give 
rise to this opinion by destroying all who are not able 
to endure the hardening process, that is to say by the 
survival of only the fittest in a physical sense. 

At seven years of age, while the girls remained at 
home to learn from their mothers household duties 
and the management of slaves, the boys were received 
into public buildings somewhat like modern barracks, 
where they henceforth lived in common, ate at a com- 



A RIGOKOUS TRAINING 101 

mon table, "slept in companies on beds made of the 
tops of reeds which they gathered with their own 
hands without knives," and, to which in winter they 
were permitted to add a little thistle down for extra? 
warmth, " went barefoot and played for the most part 
quite naked," and were " enrolled in companies where 
they were all kept under the same order and discipline 
and had their exercises and recreations in common." 

Thus the boys were removed from all home ties and 
influences, and that intangible entity, the state, to 
which they always belonged and which at first had de- 
cided that they might live, became their sole mother 
and educator. 

Their diet while nourishing was eoarse and spare, 
but they were permitted to add to its abundance by 
dexterously purloining articles from gardens or from 
the common tables; on pain however of being sent 
hungry to bed if caught, with a severe whipping for 
their maladroitness. This permitted theft vras in- 
tended to teach them self-reliance and adroitness in 
helping themselves to necessary supplies when on 
military expeditions. 

Plutarch tells us that at twelve years of age their 
under garment was taken away and henceforth but one 
upper one a year was allowed them, and that hence 
they were necessarily dirty in their persons and not 
indulged in the great favor of baths and oils save on 
some particular days of the year. Our ideas of Spar- 
tan filthiness gaine.d from this statement of Plutarch 
will however be somewhat modified when we reflect 
that most if not all their gymna&tic exercises were per- 
formed naked and were doubtless attended by profuse 



102 SPAKTA 

perspiration ; and^that one of their usual exercises was 
swimming. 

Gymnastics, which was their chief means for train- 
ing the young, was directed solely to the end of mak- 
ing men ready for war and able to endure its hardships. 
The exercises were running, jumping, and swimming 
for the younger boys, to which appears to have been 
added ball playing to strengthen the arm and give 
quickness and accuracy of eye; for the older youth 
were added wrestling, hurling the discus and the spear, 
and practice in military evolutions and in mock fights. 
Hunting was also encouraged as among the Persians, 
for the grown-up youth, to cultivate courage, hardi- 
hood, and ready self-possession in exigences. In some 
of these gymnastic exercises girls also were practised. 
Up to the 7th century B. C, merely open spaces were 
set apart for gyffinastics; from that time, the palaestrae 
were more carefully prepared and were enclosed; finally 
enclosed and roped gymnasia were erected. 

Music, which was the sole public means for spiritual 
education, was directed chiefly to the end of inspiring 
the love of country, of awakening in the soul admira- 
tion for heroic deeds and contempt for cowardice, and 
of rousing in the young an active longing for future 
conflict in which they might hope to rival the fame 
and fortune of those whose deeds they sang. 

The songs which were taught to the young, and 
which they sang sometimes chorally, sometimes re- 
sponsively, according to their form, were of the old 
heroic type, simple and natural in their structure, 
elevated and inspiring in sentiment, and voicing the 
war-like practice, and religious feelings of the race. 



gymin'astics; music; literary culture 103 

These songs, which served also for their religious cer- 
emonials, were accompanied by the lyre and the lute, 
which the boys were taught to play; and with these 
were combined the Pyrrhic or warlike dances, the de- 
scription of which cannot fail to remind us of the war 
dances of the aborigines of our own country, which 
were of very similar character and were practised for 
like purposes. 

The poems of Homer were said to have been intro- 
duced in Sparta by their lawgiver Lycurgus, and be- 
came favorites because their heroic pictures harmonized 
with the warlike aspirations of the people. Familiar- 
ity with these and with other poems whose character 
has just been mentioned, was the nearest approach to 
a culture of taste which the Spartan education ever 
made. 

Reading and writing formed no part of the Spartan 
educational system. This system so far as it extended 
was an absolutely public one and was compulsory. 
*' Every man was a teacher of the boy; every youth 
had to honor as his teacher every grown man and 
every man of gray hairs," and to submit himself duti- 
fully to his discipline, even when it was emphasized by 
blows. Blows were by no means spared in the instruc- 
tion of both boys and well-grown youths. 

We are not however entitled to infer from the fact 
that no place was given to reading and writing in this 
public instruction which was so emphatically war-like 
in its purpose, that therefore no Spartan was able to 
read and write. The correct inference would possibly 
be that whatever literary instruction may have been 
given was a matter of purely private concern, and it 



104 SPARTA 

is possible that some Spartans may have been thus pri- 
vately taught, though no mention of such a fact has 
come down to us. There was however little encour- 
agement to literary culture, since the Spartans had no 
literature save Homer and their lyric poetry, and this 
they committed to memory. Their simple code of 
laws was also carefully memorized. Why then should 
a Spartan trouble himself to learn reading ? 

Their moral or rather character education, like the 
rest, laid chief emphasis on qualities adapting for war. 
Unconditional obedience to elders and superiors was 
rigidly exacted, both from its necessity in military 
affairs, and because they believed that only by exact 
obedience can one ever learn r-ghtly to command. To 
the old, the Spartan youth were to render not merely 
obedience but reverence, to yield place to them in the 
streets, and to rise in their presence; so that it was 
said " Sparta is the only country in which it is pleasant 
to grow old." A story is told of an old man who, en- 
tering a crowded theatre in Athens where he was de- 
rided by some and neglected by all, when he came to 
the seats of the Spartan ambassadors was at once re- 
ceived among them, all rising out of respect for his 
gray hairs. Hereupon the whole audience burst forth 
in applause; and the old man said, "The Athenians 
indeed know what is seemly, but the Spartans do it." 

Complete self-poise, truthfulness among citizens, 
and simple straight-forwardness of manners, were 
strongly impressed. The manner in which self-help- 
fulness and adroitness in war were taught by permitted 
theft has already been mentioned. A stoical endur- 
ance of pain was inculcated by lashing the boys severely 



MOKALS; MANIS^EES; WIT 105 

on certain occasions, when it was a point of honor to 
utter no cry, however sharp the infliction might be; 
and it is said that sometimes a lad fell dead under the 
blows, but without uttering a groan. 

A correct judgment of men and things -was taught 
at the common meals, by asking of boys questions con- 
cerning matters involving the exercise of a judicious 
judgment, to which they were expected to give an im- 
mediate reply with a reason or proof to confirm their 
judgment; all couched in the briefest possible form of 
words. If the answer was bad or too verbose, the boy 
was liable to punishment. "This," says Plutarch, 
"accustomed the boys from their childhood to judge 
of the virtues and to enter into the affairs of their 
countrymen." It was certainly a practice well adapted 
to train to rapidity and soundness of judgment. 

The brevity of expression to which in these exercises 
the boys were enforced became famous indeed as a 
Spartan trait; so that brief and pithy expressions, witK 
much meaning condensed in few words, came to be 
called laconic. Such was the explanation given by a 
Spartan of the fewness of their laws, " To men of few 
words, few laws suffice; " and also the witty rejoinder 
of Pleistonax to an Athenian orator who had twitted 
the Lacedemonians with being illiterate, " True, for 
we alone of Greeks have nothing bad from you." 
Plutarch gives abundant examples of this pregnant 
brevity of speech usually seasoned with wit, revealing 
in the ready sense of humor a gentler trait iti the char- 
acter of these stern and rugged warriors. 

Mention has already been made of the abominable 
Spartan custom called the crypteia, of completing, as 



106 sparTyV 

it were, the education of the grown-up youth by the 
unprovoked murder of the most vigorous of the 
wretched Helots. "This crypteia," says Schmidt in 
a half-apologetic tone, " was withal a practical means 
of education, a practice for war; and indeed the 
Helots were generally looked upon only as tools which 
they used and on which they practised." 

Such then was Spartan education ; its aim, as Aris- 
totle remarks, to fit men not for citizens in peace, but 
for soldiers in war; its means the obliteration of all 
family ties, the suppression of individuality, the elimi- 
nation of the physically weak, the exaltation of the 
physical over the spiritual, and the perfecting for war 
by a previous practice in assassination; its product, a 
hard-hearted but vigorous and conquering race, dead 
to all finer feelings save that of biting humor, exceed- 
ingly illiterate yet possessed of good practical judg- 
ment, despising all useful labor as slavish, and so 
unsuited for anything but a career of war, so unfitted 
for rest and peace, that, to use the words of Aristotle, 
^'As soon as they had gained a supreme power over 
those around them they were ruined; for during peace 
like a sword, they lost their brightness; the cause of 
which lay in their education (legislator) which never 
taught them how to be at rest." (Politics YII. C. 14.) 

REFERENCES 

Grote, History of Greece. Part 2. C. YI. 
Plutarch and Lives, Lycurgus. 
Smith, History of Greece. C. YII. 
Schmidt, Geschichte des Padagogik. Yol. I. 
Dittes, Schiller der Padagogik. Part 4th pp. 48-56. 



CHAPTER VII 

GREEK EDUCATIOi?^ — ATHENS 

It has already been remarked that in general char- 
acter and in aim the educational systems of Athens 
and Sparta were polar opposites. Though both 
national in type, strongly emphasizing man's relation 
to the state for whose service he was trained, Athens 
shows a consciousness of the fact that man's value as 
a citizen depends largely on the completeness of his 
moral and intellectual culture, as well as on his bodily 
capability. Hence her education was, for the times, 
remarkably complete and symmetrical. 

Its aim is concisely given by Plato in that admir- 
able definition which occurs in the beginning of the 
7th Book of the Laws, "A nurture perfectly correct 
ought to show itself able to render both bodies and 
souls as beautiful and as perfect as they are capable of 
becoming." The statement of this aim by Aristotle 
in Book 7th C. 14 of the Politics, is equally good and 
even more explicit; where after postulating that " the 
virtue of a good citizen and a good governor is not 
different from that of a good man"; and that hence 
the instruction which fits for the one will fit also for 
the other vocation, he says " men ought to be fitted for 
labor and war, but rather for rest and peace, — fitted 
indeed to do what is necessary and useful, but still 
more what is noble. It is to those objects that the 

(107) 



108 ATHENS 

education of the children ought to tend, and that of 
all those ages which require education." 

Although these statements of the two great Athenian 
philosophers were intended only as the expression of 
their own views as to the scope of education, they still 
embody clearly the purpose of Athenian culture in the 
best days of the republic. It was beauty and grace 
for the body, and a complete development of the 
powers of the soul, — a culture fitting the citizen as 
well for the occupations and enjoyments of peace as 
for the duties of war; yet the emphasis that was really 
laid on the love of beauty and on taste, finds its ex- 
pression in the fact that the word music, designating 
the means of culture for the soul, gradually absorbed 
into itself the designation of all other subjects, and 
ceasing to be specific became generic in its import. 
Thus in considering, as we shall do presently,, the 
means of education in Athens, when they are said to 
have been gymnastics for the body and music for the 
soul, we shall do well to bear in mind the following 
statement of Grote (C. 67): "The word music is not 
to be judged according to the limited signification it 
now bears. It comprehended from the beginning 
everything pertaining to the province of the nine 
Muses, not merely learning the use of the lyre, or 
how to bear part in a chorus, but also the hearing, 
learning and repeating of political compositions, as 
well as the practice of exact and elegant pronunciation. 
As the range of ideas enlarged, so the words music 
and musical teachers acquired an expanded meaning,, 
so as to comprehend matter of instruction at once 
complex and more diversified. During the middle of 



cultuke: music 109 

the 5th century B. C. at Athens, there came thus to 
be found among the musical teachers men of the most 
distinguished abilties and eminence, masters of all the 
learning and accomplishments of the age, teaching what 
was known of astronomy, geography, and physics, and 
capable of holding dialectical discussions with their 
pupils upon all the various problems then afloat among 
intellectual men." 

Ths passage illustrates and brings into clear light, 
not only the generic import which the word music 
came to have, but also the strong aesthetic leanings 
of Athenan education, which " comprehended from the 
beginning everything pertaining to the province of the 
nine Muses." 

As a policy of culture, education at Athens would 
seem to have begun with their law-giver Solon, about 
594 B. C. This policy favored the free development 
of every male citizen, offered to it the widest scope, 
and with the rise of democratic institutions in the fol- 
lowing century, gave to such development the largest 
encouragement by opening the highest places in the 
state to individual pre-eminence. From this time, 
the purely democratic nature of their government, the 
publicity of all political and judicial transactions, the 
free social intermingling of the citizens to which the 
character of the Athenian people always impelled 
them, the common religious ceremonials, and the 
theatrical representations, all acted as powerful incen- 
tives rousing men to an active culture as a means of 
securing not only influence but even enjoyment. 
Hence, though in Athens education was never enforced 
as in Sparta by positive enactment, and was always 



1]0 ATHENS 

left to private initiative, yet the most influential 
motives were presented for its encouragement. 

Solon's laws, we are told, took great pains to bring 
labor into honor as the only means of preventing the 
recurrence of debts and the consequent personal servi- 
tude, from which at the outset he is said to have freed 
the citizens by a summary abolition of previous debts. 
Every boy was henceforth to be taught some useful 
occupation as a means of livelihood, and was absolved 
from the obligation of supporting his aged parents if 
they neglected this duty, whereas otherwise he for- 
feited his citizen righis if he refused to care for them. 

Karl Schmidt gives an account of Solon's educa- 
tional enactments derived from an oration of yEschines, 
They bound every citizen to have his sons educated in 
music and gymnastics on pain of losing all claim on 
them for support in old age; prohibited by severe 
penalties any person save the nearest male relatives of 
the teacher from entering a school in session; forbade 
the gymnasiarch from admitting grown persons to the 
gymnasium at certain school festivals on pain of pun- 
ishment as a corrupter of youth; prohibited slaves 
from remaining in a pahestra or practising its exer- 
cises; fixed the hours of school as not earlier than 
sunrise nor later than sunset; enacted that any one 
who equipped a chorus of boys should be not less than 
forty years old; and denounced the punishment of 
death against any one who should steal from a school 
to the value of more than a hundred drachmas, or 
about 120. 

To this curious school code, which is interesting both 
for its matter and for its great antiquity, may be added 



Solon's school code 111 

on the authority of Plutarch, that Solon limited the 
power of a father to sell his children to the case of an 
erring daughter; and that he is reputed to have fixed 
by law the maximum number of pupils per teacher, 
and to have introduced into Athens the poems of 
Homer, before unknown in that state. These poems, 
his relative Pisistratus not only caused to be carefully 
collected and arranged in consecutive order, as also 
the poems of Hesiod and the Cyclic poets, but also 
established as subjects of school instruction, which, 
as is obvious, was a matter of great pedagogic impor- 
tance. Some collection of historic annals is also 
ascribed to Pisistratus. 

Having acquired an aristocratic supremacy at 
Athens, which he measurably justified by the wisdom 
and mildness of his administration, Pisistratus inau- 
gurated that policy of adorning his native city with 
beautiful buildings and public monuments, which, be- 
ing continued in the succeeding century by Pericles, 
gave to Athens a means of public culture that in all 
later times operated powerfully though silently upon 
a people unusually susceptible to all esthetic influ- 
ences. This it was which enabled Thucydides to say 
with justifiable pride: "Athens is wholly a school for 
Greece. This evinces the power of our state which 
we have founded by our virtue. Of this power we 
have set up great monuments and speaking witnesses; 
and for this shall we reap admiration from our con- 
temporaries and from posterity." 

With this notice of earlier education, we come to 
that period on which the historian of education must 
always lay chief stress, the period which began in the 



112 ATHENS 

fifth century B. C, and during which Athens acquired 
that intellectual supremacy that constitutes her title 
to imperishable fame. The aim of education through 
which she gained her enviable intellectual position, we 
have already considered. It is now a matter of inter- 
est to examine the system, the means, and the method 
of that training under which grew up the galaxy of 
patriots and statesmen, of orators and historians, of 
' poets and philosophers, of architects and sculptors, 
which has been the admiration of all succeeding times, 
and which has furnished models to the ambitious stu- 
dent in every department of literature and art. 

And first as to the system. Unlike Sparta, educa- 
tion in Athens, as has already been said, was always a 
purely private affair, something which parents were to 
provide for their children each in his own way, and in 
accordance with his means or his views for their future. 
Likewise teaching was a vocation open to any one to 
enter, with no prescribed tests of fitness, and no super- 
vision save in the case of the gymnasia which the state 
had erected. That many unfit persons became teach- 
ers is wholly probable, and this was undoubtedly the 
chief cause of the low esteem in which this occupa- 
tion was at some times held. Teaching was specialized, 
different teachers instructing in separate branches like 
gymnastics, music, elementary literature, and more 
advanced literature. Thus the boy .went in turn to 
his music master, his literary teacher, and his pa^do- 
tribe or teacher of gymnastics. The primary literary 
teachers were called grammatists, the higher ones 
grammarians. Besides these, the sons of wealthy 
people had an attendant, usually a slave, called a peda- 



EDUCATION PKTVATE 113 

gogue {TracBaycoyo^), i. e., boy leader, who attended 
them to school, watched over their manners, taught 
them polite usages, and acted as general adviser and 
mentor, without at all having the functions of a 
teacher in the usual sense of the word. 

Eooms set apart for school-use are said not to have 
been common in earlier times, teachers meeting their 
pupils in the street, in open places, or under porticoes. 
This statement however was probably true only of the 
poorer teachers, those in better circumstances having 
rooms in their houses where they received their pupils. 
The law of Solon cited above against intrusion on 
schools, obviously has in view schools in rooms; and 
is equally good as showing Athenian practice in the 
4th century B. C. and earlier, whether the laws quoted 
by ^schines were or were not real laws of Solon. 
Such rooms had a platform for the teacher, and stools 
but no desks for the boys. They were furnished with 
a reckoning board fitted with groves and pebbles for 
arithmetical instruction; and they are said in some 
cases to have had pictures to illustrate scenes in 
Homer, the common reading book, as also simple 
figures to give elementary ideas of geometry. 

The discipline of the schools seems to have been 
strict, and the rod was doubtless freely used for its 
enforcement. An oft-quoted passage from Aristophanes 
represents the music master as teaching the boys some 
good songs in a very decorous style, and thrashing any 
mischievous urchin who ventured to adorn the notes 
with extra flourishes of his own. The education of 
the poorer or less ambitious boys was probably limited 



114 ATHENS 

to reading, swimming, and a trade, according to the 
precept of Solon. 

In Book 7tli of the Laws, C. S. 11th and I4th, Plato 
proposed that elementary education should be made 
compulsory for all children of hoth sexes. "All men 
and boys," he says, " must by compulsion be in- 
structed as well as they can, since they belong to the 
state rather than to their parents. The very same 
things my laws would name for females as for males, 
for it is meet equally to exercise the females likewise." 

Again, having assigned the three years from ten to 
thirteen for learning to read and write, and three 
years more for music, he adds "nor let it be lawful 
for a father to permit, nor for his son of his own act 
to make his application to these studies, more or less, 
and for more or less years; and let him who disobeys 
this law be deprived of those youthful honors presently 
to be mentioned." 

Thus we see that the great xithenian sage more 
than twenty-tw^o centuries ago, clearly expressed the 
right and duty of the state to enforce the general edu- 
cation of all children of citizens against the inditfer- 
ence or unwillingness of parents and the refractoriness 
of children; and that he proposes for disobedience an 
influential penalty, apparently no less than incapacity 
to fill the chief offices of the state (B. 12). Only in 
recent times have the most enlightened nations risen 
to the level of this wise policy; so long ago proposed; 
and it is a subject for rejoicing that the United States, 
which is doing so much for popular education and at 
such cost, has begun to accept the logical consequences 
of its institutions by making effectual provision that 



HIGHER EDUCATIOIs^ 115 

the culture whicli it so abundantly provides shall reach 
the classes whose very neglect proves that they need 
it most. 

General school education would appear to have ended 
at Athens with the sixteenth year, and to have given 
place, with the great majority of youth, to a training 
for industries or for w^ar and arms. To a much smaller 
number of young men, the elite spirits, a higher cul- 
ture fitting for the active duties of citizenship in a 
democratic state, or for the nobler enjoyment of a re- 
fined life, was given by a class of men called sophists, 
who exacted considerable fees for their services, or by 
philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, most 
if not all of whom taught for the love of it, and, 
thought it ignoble to accept payment for such services. 
Of these we shall have occasion to speak more fully 
in another place. What has so far been said is in- 
tended merely to afford a general view of the system 
of Athenian education, its limitations and its acces- 
sories. It remains that we examine more closely its 
means and the spirit and extent in which these means 
were used, as also the methods which were used in im- 
pressing them. 

I am not inclined to treat here the military training 
of the Ephebi, which was of somewhat late introduc- 
tion, and which belonged in all probability to the 
wealthiest class of youth between the ages of sixteen 
and twenty. To those who are interested in this, the 
account given in chapter VII of Mahaffey's " Old 
Greek Education", will be found sufficient. 



CHAPTER VIII 

GREEK EDUCATIOIn" — ATHENS — MEANS AND METHOD OF 
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 

The Athenians understood as well as we do the im- 
portance and the permanency of the impressions early 
made on the minds of children. Hence they not only 
exercised a care which we might profitably imitate for 
the health and physical nurture of their children, but 
also strove to control the home influences to which 
they should be subjected by mothers and nurses. It 
was the fashion with wealthy families to secure Spar- 
tan nurses, because it was believed that the nurture 
which they gave, the discipline they enforced, and the 
example they offered for conduct, had the most salu- 
tary effects on their nurselings. 

In Athens, as everywhere, a highly important part 
of the early education of children, — a part through 
which they unconsciously acquire their native tongue, 
become familiar with the more obvious properties of 
the nature which surrounds them, and learn to conform 
their action to imperative natural laws, — was gained 
through plays, which says Plato, "children left free 
to act almost invent of themselves." 

It is interesting to note the identity of these plays 
with those now in vogue. The Greek child of the 
classic ages made a racket with rattles and drums; 
rode hobby horses; imitated its elders with dolls and 
play houses and miniature wagons; gained quickness 
of eye and strength and dexterity of aim by throwing 

(116) 



EDUCATION THROUGH PLAY 117 

balls and trundling hoops; studied elementary physics 
with tops and see-saw; and acquired physical vigor by 
hide and seek and games to catch its play-mates, the 
same games which in spite of all modern inventions 
of plays for children, are still most popular with the 
little Tom Browns of to-day. Unless we assume what 
seems hardly probable, that these sports have been 
transmitted in unbroken succession from age to age, 
it appears that a kind of infantile instinct guides chil- 
dren perennially to the same forms of amusement that 
are best adapted to afford them the training that they 
most need at that age. 

Apart from their plays, the physical education of 
young children was chiefly directed, in the words of 
Plato, "to overcome even from youth what falls upon 
us in the shape of terrors and fears." 

The regular physical training or gymnastics of 
older boys was given by masters called paedotribes 
(7rai8oTpi/3ri<;)^ i. e., boy trainers, who received fees 
from their pupils for their services, under the over- 
sight of other masters termed gymnasts, who pre- 
scribed the appropriate exercises.* These lessons were 
given in establishments called palaestra and gymnasia, 
of which some critics suppose that the former were 
intended for boys and the latter for men. By the 
Athenians, gymnastics were intended not only to give 
courage and bodily dexterity as a training for war, but 
also to insure physical health and to impart grace and 
harmony in the use of all the bodily powers. The 
duty of the psedotribe was to teach graceful and 
becoming behavior as well as skill in gymnastics; and 

* Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities— Article Gymnasium. 



118 ATHEKS 

in the most violent exercises care was taken that the 
movements should be as well harmonious as effective. 

The chief exercises were running, leaping, wrest- 
ling, boxing, and the hurling of the discus and the 
spear, the Greek pentathlon or five-fold exercise. All 
these exercises fitted indeed for martial pursuits, but 
they were practised in Athens with a larger purpose 
than in Sparta, and in a different spirit. Dancing was 
taught as a part of gymnastics, for its efficiency in 
making movements gentle and graceful, and because 
of its use in acts of religious worship. Boxing was 
taught only to the older boys, but it was evidently 
quite different from what is now practised. Since the 
chief objective point was the ears^ there could have 
been no striking from the shoulder. The ability to 
swim was seemingly expected of every Grecian boy, 
yet we have no evidence that it was taught as a part 
of gymnastics. Probably the boys learned this art 
from each other, much as boys do now, without the aid 
of any regular teacher. 

Plato recommends that women as well as men should 
be trained in gymnastics and taught to handle warlike 
weapons, that " standing up nobly for their country 
while it is laid waste, they may, if able to do nothing 
more, at least strike terror into the foe when they are 
seen drawn up in a kind of array." In this he was 
doubtless inspired by the example of the Spartans, 
whose young women, as we have seen, had a careful 
physical training which, as Plato must have observed, 
made them greatly superior to their pale and secluded 
Athenian sisters. 

The results of Athenian physical training were by 



GYMNASTICS 



119 



no means limited to the objects which it had immedi- 
ately in view, — the forming of men healthy and vigor- 
ous in body, capable of enduring the hardships of war 
and courageous to withstand its terrors, and expressing 
ease and grace in all the movements of a figure beauti- 
ful because symmetrically developed; the exercises of 
the gymnasium doubtless had also, as an indirect 
effect, a great influence in determining tha't remark- 
able development of the plastic arts in the direction 
of sculpture which has made Athens famous in all 
succeeding ages. These exercises not only furnished 
the finest models of physical perfection to a people 
unusually gifted with artistic sensibility, but they 
familiarized the artist with every variety of the lan- 
guage of muscle in the various modes of physical ex- 
ertion. The nude state of the gymnasts in the exer- 
cises of the palaestrge afforded opportunities for this 
kind of familiarity such as no modern artist can have; 
and to this v/e may reasonably attribute much of the 
Orecian excellence in sculpture. 

It is a great pedagogical merit of Aristotle that he 

founds moral education on 

the habitual expression of 
right feeling by a corre- 
sponding course of con- 
duct, and that he would 
have the habituation t o 
right acts so early begun 
and so wisely directed that 
when the youth approaches 
maturity, his reason may 
give a full and free assent Aristotle, 384-322, b. c. 




120 ATHENS 

to his habits. Thus he would give effect to moral 
teaching by moral habits, and a value to moral pre- 
cepts by the free assent of mature reason to those 
habits. 

Aristotle's wise idea, which twenty centuries later 
was emphasized by Locke, doubtless had in its day 
much the same fate as Locke's, finding few parents or 
teachers to carry it out in its full extent; and yet, 
apparently, every branch of Athenian education was 
conceived to have its bearing on the development of 
character. 

Even gymnastics was rightly thought to have its 
moral aspect; since, in bringing all bodily capabilities 
under the control of the Avill, it both fits the body to 
obey the behests of reason, and strengthens the will 
to control the movements and inclinations of the soul. 
That part of gymnastics which pertained to dancing 
had an especial moral significance, since it was not 
designed as in our times to become merely a means of 
graceful social recreation, but to be used in religious 
ceremonials for the worship of the gods. 

In like manner, the means of intellectual education 
were to a considerable extent used wnth a decided 
moral purpose. They consisted largely, as we shall 
presently see, in reading and imprinting on the mem- 
ory the descriptions and praises of heroes and sages 
contained in the poets, by which the boys were stimu- 
lated to imitate the virtues and to emulate the deeds 
Avhich they admired. 

Says Lucian in the second century A. D., after men- 
tioning the preliminary instruction in reading and 
writing, " When now the boys have made due progress 



MORALS; RELIGION^; MUSIC 121 

in these, we dictate to tliem the maxims of the sages, 
and the lines of poets who have embodied in verse the 
deeds of our old heroes or other useful things, that 
they may be more easily impressed on the memory." 

The literature of the Greeks too was largely saturated 
with their religious beliefs, and the needful accessory 
explanation of allusions to their mythology was to the 
Greek child a religious instruction analogous to what 
would be given by using a study of the Bible. This- 
was especially true of the Homeric poems; and it was 
because of his keen perception of the abiding influence 
on morals exerted by early familiarity with the poets, 
that Plato in the " Laws ", and more fully in the " Re- 
public ", insists on a careful discrimination as to the 
portions of poems that should be used in the educa- 
tion of youth. 

But of all the means for moral education, the great- 
est etticiency was by all the Greeks ascribed to music. 
It was thought to bring order and harmony into the 
feelings, to dispose the soul to virtue, and to fire it 
with courage and patriotism. Doubtless the Greek 
music, like the instruments by which it was accom- 
panied, was of a simple and elevating kind, devoid of 
those complex harmonies which in modern music often 
tax the analytic intellect more than they touch the 
heart. The songs also which were set to these simple 
melodies were, we know, mostly of a heroic or patriotic 
and religious character. Appealing thus by words to 
the strongest sentiments of the Grecian people, in 
whom it powerfully aided to foster such sentiments, 
and speaking directly to the heart through the simple 
structure of its melodies, it is not so difficult as some 



122 ATHENS 

have seemed to find it, to account for the influence in 
shaping character which philosophers like Plato and 
Aristotle ascribed to music; nor to understand why 
Plato should have thought that by establishing unalter- 
ably by laws the songs and melodies of a state, the 
legislator might give permanency to its political insti- 
tutions. One who lived in a much more recent age 
than Plato and amid very different surroundings, has 
expressed the same idea in the well-known saying, 
" Give me the making of the songs of a people and 1 
care not who makes its laws." 

When we add to all this, that the chief laws of the 
state were imprinted in the memory of the youth that 
they might know what was expected of good citizens, 
we shall find reason to confess that the Athenians fell 
little short of the most advanced nations of Christen- 
dom in their care for the moral training of their 
children. 

An examination of the means used by the Athenians 
in intellectual education, should serve to mpdify in 
some degree the stress which we of to-day are inclined 
to lay on the study of foreign languages, as an almost 
indispensable means for the attainment of high cul- 
ture, and for the mastery of the vernacular. They 
knew no language save their own; and yet through the 
mastery of this by the thorough use of its own re- 
sources, their poets and orators, their philosophers and 
historians, attained such excellence as still to be con- 
sidered by many as well-nigh unattainable models of 
literary perfection; nor can we deny to them the pos- 
session of an extraordinary culture, though they dis- 
dain as barbarous all languages and literatures save 



language: reading, literatuee 123 

their own. Still it would be unsafe to generalize too 
far from this one shining example; for we shall see, 
some centuries later, how deeply the descendents of 
these same Greeks degenerated, from lack of intel- 
lectual intercourse with other races and of its attendant 
stimulus. 

The necessary first knowledge of reading was gained 
by the Athenian school-boy by a method which has but 
recently ceased to be used by us, that is by learning 
the alphabet first, then forming syllables from the let- 
ters, and finally advancing to words. This method 
was however less unreasonable in a language like the 
Greek in which the letters represent fixed sounds, than 
in English, which has many more sounds than charac- 
ters to represent them, and which presents besides ex- 
traordinary irregularities in spelling. 

When the boy had mastered the elements of read- 
ing, in which special care was given to securing nicety 
of pronunciation, correct use of the accent, and mel- 
ody of intonation, he proceeded to what we may prop- 
erly term the study of the choice literature of the lan- 
guage, the works of Homer and the cyclic poets; of 
Hesiod; of Solon, who was poet and philosopher as 
well as lawgiver; and of others of the ancient sages 
from whose works selections were made for school use. 

On account of the scarcity of books, there was large 
use of memory and of oral teaching, the teacher dic- 
tating and explaning what the boys were to write and 
learn; and there can be little doubt that much of the 
best literature of the Greek race was thus securely 
fixed in the minds of the boys, with great corresponding 
benefits to taste and morals, as well as to intelligence. 



124 ATHENS 

Xot only was religious teaching interwoven with this 
instruction in the works of the poets and sages, by 
way of explanations of the mythology, especially in 
the poems of Homer, who was, according to Greek 
ideas, an inspired teacher of morals; but interesting 
evidence exists that objective aids like pictures were 
used to insure a proper realization of what was taught. 

The Greeks had become skilful in the literary use of 
their language, and had brought it to a high degree of 
perfection, long before they began to trouble their 
heads about its anatomy; for the grammatical, or more 
properly rhetorical structure of the Greek tongue, did 
not become a subject of school study until the fifth 
century B. C, when it was introduce by the sophists, 
and the first formal grammar of the language was pre- 
pared by Dionysius Thrax, an Alexandrian scholar, 
about 80 B. C. 

The art of writing was taught by the use of tablets 
covered with wax, in which the letters were traced with 
an iron pen called a stylus, having one end pointed to 
incise letters in the wax, and the other flat to obliter- 
ate badly wTitten lines. The copy written by the 
teacher was first retraced by the pupil to become ac- 
customed to the necessary movements, and then imi- 
tated below. The Roman Quintilian, speaking of the 
same mode of teaching writing which prevailed at 
Eome, suggested that the copies should be incised in 
a hard surface to facilitate the learning of the move- 
ments by the pupils. 

From an expression of Plato in the "Laws'*, it 
would seem that rapid or ready writing was not con- 
sidered to be within the scope of ordinary elementary 



grammak; pei^manship; arithmetic 125 

education. The copying of books was done chiefly by 
slaves on papyrus with reed pens, and it is not impos- 
sible that ready writing may have been considered 
slavish. In much later times persons have been known 
to pride themselves on a cramped and illegible pen- 
manship, as though it were a mark of intellectual 
superiority, or of a soul elevated above mere mechani- 
cal dexterity. 

Arithmetic, or more properly the art of reckoning, 
was taught on a system of fives with the aid of the 
abacus, which had been introduced from Egypt, and 
with a great use of the fingers bent in various ways. 
Beckoning was in general carried no farther than was 
absolutely necessary for the usual affairs of life. 

The Greek notation was too cumbrous to encourage 
any other than the most needful use, though it was 
much better than the Roman notation in this respect. 
It consisted of the use of the letters of the alphabet 
separated into three groups of nines, one character be- 
ing interpolated in each group to make the requisite 
twenty-seven, the characters in the first group stand- 
ing for the units, in the second for the tens, and in 
the third for the hundreds, while a short vertical line 
drawn under a character multiplied it by a thousand. 
Thus a=one, /3^=two, /c=20, 9^ = 6, f = 90, r =300, 
S =4,000, X =30,000, etc. 

Plato thought that to the art of reckoning should 
be added those principles of geometry which apply 
to common measurements, and so much of astron- 
omy as is implied in a correct knowledge of the 
days, months, seasons, and stars, since " it is shameful 
for the masses not to know these things." Beyond 



126 ATHENS 

this he evidently did not think these studies should be 
carried save by choice spirits; though he had so high 
an estimate of the value of geometry for philosophers 
that he is said to have made a knowledge of it a requi- 
site for admission to his lectures. 

Such then were the few and simple means of educa- 
tion employed by the Athenians to the middle of the 
fifth century B. C. ; gymnastics for the body, includ- 
ing dancing and graceful deportment; for the soul, 
music, the chanting of the old heroic, patriotic, and 
religious hymns of the Greek race, accompanied by 
the notes of the lyre and flute; for the intellect and 
taste, reading and a little writing, the simplest and 
most practical elements of arithmetic, geometry, and. 
astronomy, and a most enviable intimacy with the 
greatest works in their national literature. 

This seems a meagre scheme of studies to produce 
such eminent results in national character and artistic 
accomplishment as had already distinguished Athens 
before and during the age of Pericles; yet it may be 
questioned whether the small number of the branches 
then available for school culture may not have been 
positively advantageous, by compelling a more inten- 
sive use of ^what they possessed, and especially of music 
and the treasures of their vernacular literature. 

Amidst the multiplicity of subjects which are 
crowded upon the educator of to-day, and which are 
pertinaciously urged upon his acceptance by an un- 
thinking public and an eager press, there is always 
danger that he may be beguiled into thinking that 
since there are so many useful and interesting things 
to know, school children should make the attempt to 



A LIMITED CURRICULUM 127 

know something of them all. And so languages and 
mathematics and sciences and histories and the tools 
of various trades, are likely to be thrust immediately 
upon the immature intelligence, which needs to be 
developed quite as much as furnished, — with the in- 
evitable result of a superficial jumble of half-formed 
notions and few or no clear ideas; mental powers so 
frittered away in aimless and uncompleted efforts that 
no definite mental habits are formed; taste and judg- 
ment weakened because no time is given for the proper 
use of either; formal examinations taking the place of 
culture; and finally the body neglected and the devel- 
opment of character overlooked in the vain chase after 
a shallow and useless universality. 

From such dangers of over-crowding with the con- 
sequent mental indigestion and thwarted development, 
Athenian scbool-boys were free; and to this fact may 
have been due in some degree the purity of taste and 
the strength of certain intellectual traits by which 
the Athenians as a people were distinguished. 

The special characters of the Athenian common edu- 
cation may be boldly presented, and at the same time 
usefully reviewed, by quoting from Karl Schmidt 
(i. 572) the striking passage in which he contrasts 
Athenian with Spartan education. 

" The education of the Spartans, by which just as 
much constraint was put upon the individual, as in 
Attica freedom was permitted to him, was a general, 
public, and uniform one, in which also the maidens 
shared; the education of the Athenians w^as national 
only in its import, whilst in its form it essentially em- 
phasized diversity and individuality. 



128 ATHENS 

" In Sparta the physical tyrannized over the spirit- 
ual education; in Athens a proper equilibrium between 
body and spirit was the end for which they strove. 

" In Athens, the woman was reared more in the pri- 
vacy of the home than in Sparta; and consequently 
public female education was cared for more in Sparta 
than in Athens. 

" In Sparta, education was the care of the state, 
and was therefore directed by the state for the state ; 
in Athens education was a private matter supervised 
by the state only in a general way; hence in Sparta it 
was strictly limited by law, whilst in Athens, not 
hampered by laws, it developed itself freely in all 
directions. 

" Sparta limited instruction, aside from gymnastics, 
to music and the sharpening of the judgment; Athens 
strove by its scientific instruction, and especially 
through exposition of the classic writings, to sharpen 
the powers of thought, to waken the sense of beauty, 
and to inspire a feeling for the noble. 

" The Spartan music in which the youth were in- 
structed was quiet and elevated; the Ionic, to which 
the Athenians were inclined, was of a more exciting 
character. Gymnastics at Sparta aimed especially at 
endurance and physical strength; at Athens, it strove 
to attain harmony and strength and agility. 

" Education in Sparta promoted blind obedience; in 
Athens the individual judgment of the youth was 
developed. In Athens a part of filial duty was based 
on gratitude; in Sparta, all duty of the child to his 
parents consisted in obedience. 

" The Athenian education was one which developed 



SPAKTA AND ATHEI^S CONTRASTED 129 

with the development of the people; the Spartan re- 
mained fixed and unalterable. Hence in Sparta there 
was only one education; in Athens there were an old 
and a new education. The Athenian education strove, 
by the harmonious development of all the powers, to 
make of the youth a beautiful whole, a moral work of 
art; and the subsequent practice, in public life ad- 
vanced the work of education, generated self-confi- 
dence, kept all the powers in full tension, and pro- 
moted keen observation and prudent judgment of 
persons and circumstances, aud, in general, energy 
and worldly wisdom. The deeper moral ideal of man, 
and, with this, of education as a genuine religious 
culture, the Athenian did not and could not know, 
since he viewed all spiritual as well as physical life 
only in the light of the aesthetic idea." 

This higher humanitarian ideal of man, of his des- 
tiny, and of his consequent education for an earthly 
career which should be a fit preparation for an immor- 
tal life, still awaited, not merely the coming of Christ, 
but the full development of the consequences of his 
teachings. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE XEW OR HIGHER EDUCATION IN ATHENS 

During the fifth century, B. C, the number of de- 
sirable studies in Greece, but more especially in Athens, 
was somewhat increased by reason of the more compli- 
cated relations which were introduced into their 
political life through the substitution of democratic 
institutions in place of the old aristocratic polity. 
These new branches however had exclusive reference 
to the hio^her training of the comparatively few elite 
and more ambitious youth for a life of political and 
social activity; and so they wrought no change in 
that elementary education which was given to the 
many. 

These more advanced subjects, which ultimately ex- 
panded into a true university system, will claim our 
attention in the present chapter. They were such as 
were concerned with a more precise study of the rela- 
tions of man to the state, to his fellows, and to the 
supreme good, giving rise to politics, to ethics, and to 
philosophy; or with the means of sifting ideas and 
arguments in order to discover their truth or their 
falsity or to confound an adversary, whence sprung 
dialectics; or with aiding men to attain the power of 
ready, effective, and convincing speech in the presence 
of a multitude, whence rhetoric arose. 

To teach this new class of subjects, a new set of 
(130) 



THE SOPHISTS 131 

teachers was needed, with larger acquirements and a 
wider range of experience than the old Athenian 
schoolmasters, and a class called sophists arose to sup- 
ply the need. J'hese men, who for many ages have 
had a peculiar stigma attached to their name, which 
in most European languages has embodied itself in 
words of derogatory meaning, have at length found a 
brilliant apologist and defender in Grote, who in his 
History of Greece (Chap. 67) depicts them as at first 
migratory teachers of subjects needed for social and 
political life, who ' ' were prized all over Greece, travelled 
from city to city with general admiration, and ob- 
tained considerable pay." 

Bringing to their vocation " a larger range of knowl- 
edge with a greater multiplicity of scientific and other 
topics " than was then common, possessing " a con- 
siderable treasure of accumulated thought on moral 
and political subjects ", and having " not only more 
impressive powers of composition and speech, — but 
also a comprehension of the elements of good speak- 
ing ", their aim was to m.ake men ready and practical 
as citizens under conditions such as then existed in 
Greece, able not only to think and act appropriately, 
but to express their opinions effectively in public 
assemblies. 

" Their direct business was with ethical precept, 
not with ethical theory: all ihat was required of them 
as to the latter was that their theory should be suffi- 
ciently sound to lead to such practical precepts as were 
accounted virtuous by the most estimable society in 
Athens.," 

They imparted a useful smattering of many subjects, 



132 ATHENS 

such as politics and ethics, science and philosophy, of 
which men needed to know something that they might 
make a creditable figure in public life; and gave a 
special training in rhetoric as an art oj effective speak- 
ing, and in dialectics, which answers to what we term 
logic. The latter art, which men like Socrates, Plato, 
and Aristotle employed to discover truth and to reach 
what they considered the essence of subjects, the 
Sophist used to make men ready in debate and dex- 
trous to answer and confound opponents. 

It may readily be seen that such a training furnished 
weapons which could be used for bad purposes as well 
as good, and which in the hands of unscrupulous 
men, or even of good men intent only on immediate 
results, could easily be employed to obscure truth and 
to make the worse appear the better reason. Doubt- 
less in Athens the art of persuasive speech and dex- 
trous argumentation, acquired through the teaching 
of the Sophists, was often perverted to improper uses 
— as where in the world's history have such arts not 
been liable to misuse ? This fact, together with the 
superficiality of their teachings, which aimed only at 
imparting knowledge immediately usable, gave oc- 
casion to philosophers like Plato, themselves pro- 
found but rival teachers, to attack both them and 
their system. 

Undoubtedly also the fact that the Sophists ex- 
acted for their services fees which were often very con- 
siderable, added bitterness to such attacks, since men 
like Plato and Socrates considered this a desecration 
of the office of moral teachers; and aided to fix a 
stain upon a class which held in its ranks many high- 



THE SOPHISTS . 133 

minded and useful men like Gorgias and Isocrates, who 
were pursuing a calling for which there was at that 
time a large demand. This last subject of reproach 
would have no weight in our days; for no one for many 
ages has thought that higher teachers lowered the dig- 
nity of their calling by accepting payment for their 
services, or in other words, that no one but persons of 
independent fortunes should presume to teach young 
men. 

Such is an outline of Mr. Grote's defence of this 
interesting class of higher teachers, which I have 
given not only because it seems reasonable in itself 
and pertinent to our subject, but also because a special 
pedagogic interest is attached to the efforts of these 
much-vilified men; since the more extended scheme 
of studies which they had done much at least to 
popularize, passed in the next century into the hands 
of men of a more profound though speculative genius, 
and by them was wrought into a form in which it be- 
came the basis of the first University systeui of educa- 
tion. It is well therefore to vindicate the origins of 
so important an educational factor from any unmerited 
reproach. 

The men of genius to whom we have just alluded 
were first Plato and Aristotle, followed after a few 
decades by Zeno and Epicurus, eacli of whom founded, 
a philosophic system that was represented in the Uni- 
versity when it assumed a somewhat settled form. The 
old gymnasia, the Academy and the Lyceum, which 
had become recognized places for social meetings of 
citizens and for the interchange of opinions, were 
utilized by the great teachers also for their discourses. 



134 



ATHENS 



/ 




LATo. 4'Ji»-347, B. C. 



Aristotle. ;*4-3^2, B. C. 





/hNo A4:-->7{), B. (J 



IOpic 



;;4-j -jvo. Ji. c. 



Thus Plato lectured and questioned in the groves of 
Academe. Aristotle (see page 119) paced back and 
forth followed by his auditors in the walks of the 
Lyceum, whence his school came to be called the Peri- 
patetic, i. e., those, who walk about. Epicurus taught 
in his own garden at Athens, whither crowds flocked to 
hear him from idl Greece and from Asia Minor. Finally 
Zeno established his place for teaching in a porch or 
stoa, whence his disciples were called Stoics. 

Plato first set the example of the endowment of 
teaching, by the gift of his two plots of land to his 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY IDEA 135 

favorite pupil, Spensippus, while designating him as 
his successor. Other great masters also named their 
successors, with or without endowment; and thus four 
systems or schools of philosophy arose, the heads of 
which at first named their successors, but later the 
head was chosen by the disciples. The practice of 
endowment spread in later times, and a university sys- 
tem gradually developed itself, in which the dominant 
studies were rhetoric and the four schools of philoso- 
phy, these studies being evidently pursued in the same 
spirit and for the same purpose that actuate the mass 
of university students of the present day. 

Ehetoric, which was divided into theoretic and prac- 
tical rhetoric, began with the study of Greek litera- 
ture, both poetic and prose, and passed thence to the 
technique of expression and to the practice of care- 
ful writing. 

The four schools of philosophy limited themselves 
each to teaching and expounding the doctrines of its 
founder, but unfortunately without imitating his 
originality, or attempting to modify in the least what 
the master had taught. . Hence the tendency of philo- 
sophic teaching was to promote rather the acceptance 
of a settled body of doctrine, than a truly philosophic 
freedom of thinking on great subjects. 

Up to the Christian era, the schools were wholly in- 
dependent of the state, and were supported by endow- 
ments or by the fees of students. Somewhat later, the 
Eoman emperors established chairs of rhetoric and of 
politics the salaries of which were paid by the state, 
and they not unfrequently interposed in filling such 



136 ATHENS 

places.* According to Gibbon, the emperor Hadrian 
in the 2d century A. D., founded a splendid library 
for the university. 

The head of the university had the title of sophist, 
from which it would appear that no odium then clung 
to that name. Besides the professors, there came to 
be large numbers of tutors living by fees received from 
students. Among the various teachers sharp compe- 
titions for numerous hearers arose, in which the stu- 
dents riotously participated, forming societies whose 
chief bond of union was adhesion to some teacher, and 
contending with each other for new-comers, whom 
they "rushed" for their favorite tutor or professor. 
Karl Schmidt (i.86o) gives the following interesting 
account of these student societies, and of some stu- 
dent usages, derived from authors of the last cen- 
turies of antiquity. 

" They were called corps, fraternities ((pparptaL) 
etc., and had a senior at their head whose duty it was, 
at the beginning of the school year, to march to the 
Piraeus at the head of his corps, to take charge of the 
freshmen arriving from Egypt and Pontus, and to win 
them to his fraternity. Such fraternities were usually 
made up, not so much according to nationality as from 
adherence to certain teachers. Those students who 
entered any fraternity were bound to attend on a cer- 
tain prescribed teacher. From the nature of the case, 
there was not lacking rivalry among the teachers as 
well as among their students." 

After giving a curious example of two noted rival 
teachers who were constrained to have their private 

*For the mode of filling professorships see Schmidt, 4th ed., i.869, 877. 



THE STUDEN^TS 137 

lecture rooms that they might be secure from the tur- 
bulence of the opposing factions, and whose adherents 
even came to blows in their zeal for their favorite pro- 
fessors, our author remarks: "This kind of life and 
conduct reminds us of the conditions of the middle 
ages and of modern times. Even many details of the 
present student customs have their origin in antiquity. 
Thus we hear of tossing freshmen in blankets, and of 
all sorts of singular usages at initiations, of the debts 
of students, of the collection of dues by scouts, of poor 
students who were supported by Athenian citizens," 
and other things of like character, showing how little 
youthful human nature has changed in the lapse of 
centuries. 

The students were distinguished by a college gown, 
the wearing of which seems to have been a privilege 
conferred only by the Sophist. The usual time of 
residence at the university was from five to eight 
years; but there were no prescribed courses or degrees, 
the system being wholly elective and voluntary. The 
fewness of the subjects then available for higher in- 
struction rendered this lack of definite system less 
troublesome than it would now be; but there is abund- 
ance of evidence that there was much idleness and 
dissoluteness on the part of students, doubtless due in 
part to the lack of any oversight or any tests of 
progress— though from a passage in Plutarch it would 
seem that examinations at the completion of studies 
were not wholly unknown, and that these consisted in 
a display on the part of students of how skilfully they 
could use the knowledge they had gained. 

Other sources of disorder arose from the fact that 



138 ATHENS 

in the schools there were no limits of age, no rule as 
to numbers of studies, no enforcement of attendance 
on anything, and no discipline save the little that was 
possibl}^ exercised by archons elected for brief periods 
by the students themselves. In short, we have here 
an example of " freedom of teaching and freedom of 
study " in its purest form. Reliance was evidently 
placed on the interest of the great body of students 
in doing that for which they visited the university; 
and it is probable that this was sufficient to hold the 
large majority of the students to their duty. A 
small but disorderly minority can easily make itself 
strikingly prominent, whilst the great body of quietly 
studious men attracts but little attention. 

There were, besides the fraternities, students' clubs, 
which, from the names of two of them, the Theseids 
and the Heracleids, may have had some aristocratic or 
possibly some political significance: they probably had 
some analogy with the students' clubs in German uni- 
versities, rather than with the secret fraternities so 
well known in American colleges. The unpleasant 
attentions paid to freshmen have already been men- 
tioned in the quotation from Professor Schmidt: ap- 
parently they were not of so rough and brutal a nature 
as the ceremonies called "deposition", which von 
itaumer describes as prevailing in the German univer- 
sities until comparatively recent times. 

Besides the clubs of students in general, there were 
endowed philosophic clubs of the four schools of phil- 
osophy, which met at stated periods, usually once a 
month, for grave conversation over a frugal supper; 
but it is said that at least some of them finally degen- 



u:n^iversitv of Athens 139 

■erated into occasions of riotous festivity qnite anbe- 
■coming* to philosophers. 

The university of Athens was celebrated throughout 
the civilized world of its time, and attracted ambitious 
youth from every quarter. It was long the university 
city of Rome, which had no institutions for the higher 
learning until near the close of the first Christian cen- 
tury; and many of the fathers of the early Christian 
church received their literary training there or at 
Alexandria. 

During the early centuries, other higher institutions 
•of less note, which deserve at least to be named here, 
were spread along the shores of the Mediterranean by 
the infiuence of the Greek spirit, — at Marseilles, at 
Rhodes, at Tarsus and Berytus, and, greatest of all, 
at Alexandria. The great university and famous 
library of Alexandria, founded and encouraged by the 
Greek successors of Alexander, had a duration of more 
than nine centuries, from 298 B. C. to about 650 A. D. 
This school " was regarded as the university of prog- 
ress, the laboratory of positive science, in contrast to 
the conservative and literary Athens."* It was espe- 
cially famous for its schools of medicine and mathe- 
matics, and for the relative freedom and freshness of 
its philosophic thought at a time when all originality 
of thinking had ceased in Athens. 

The university of x\tliens was finally suppressed by 
Justinian, 502 A. D. ; after a duration of about eight 
centuries, reckoning its origin, as we may from the 
time of the great Athenian philosophers. 

After this survey of Athenian education in both its 



*Mahaffv— Old Greek Education. 



140 ATHENS 

elementary and its higher forms, we are entitled, I 
think, to say that education owes to Athens a two-fold 
debt: first of all, because it has presented to us an 
example that has never since been equalled of what 
can be accomplished by a consistent education in the 
physical and aesthetic development of an entire people; 
and second, because, by developing the various branches 
of knowledge, and by organizing a system of educa- 
tion suited to the higher as well as the lower wants of 
man, and ranging from the simplest elements to the 
highest subjects then within the reach of the best 
mi ads, it has created the principles on which later the 
Eoman system of schools was built up; and thus 
through Rome has introduced to modern nations those 
forms to which they must recur when they desire to 
effect beneficial changes, whether in the aims, the 
means, or the methods of education. Still other items 
of indebtedness may appear as we survey in succeed- 
ing pages the educational services of some of the great 
Grecian thinkers. 

USEFUL WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR ATHENIAN 
EDUCATION 

K. Schmidt.— Gescliichte der Pitdagogik, Vol. I, 4tli Ed. 

Grote. — History of Greece. Especially chapters 37, 67, and 68. 

Plutarch's Lives — Solon. 

Plato. — Republic, and Laws. 

Aristotle. — Politics and Ethics. 

Xenophon . — The Memorabil ia . 

Martin. — Les Idees Pedagogiques des Grecs. 

Davidson. — Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals. 

iMahalfv.— Old Greek Education. 



CHAPTER X 

PYTHAGORAS AND HIS SCHOOL 

It is the duty of the historian of education, not 
merely to describe the systems for training the young 
which have been in vogue amongst the historic peoples, 
and to emphasize the fundamental ideas of which such 
systems were the practical embodiment; but also to 
take careful note of whatever prominent educational 
experiments were made, whatever striking methods of 
imparting instruction were devised, and whatever well- 
considered views on education were expressed, — views 
which though their own age might not yet be ripe for 
their reception, may yet be of value in the history of 
educational thought. 

Greece can afford us examples of all three of these 
matters of pedagogic interest: of the first, in what 
may correctly be called the pedagogic experiment of 
Pythagoras in his school at Crotona; of the second, 
in the method which was practised by Socrates and is 
enduringly linked with his name, and also in the 
methods which were used by Aristotle in his researches 
and one of which he developed in scientific form; and 
of the third, in the educational theories enunciated by 
Plato and Aristotle, not to mention Plutarch, who was 
of a much more recent date, and who was not so ex- 
<3lusively Grecian in spirit. In the present chapter, 
we will consider the School of Pythagoras. 

(141) 



142 



PYTHAGORAS 



Although many things in the career of Pythagoras 
are not reliably known, as is natural in a matter so 
remote in point of time, and although not a few of 
the incidents that are reported of him have a mythical 
look from the great reverence in which he was held 
by his disciples, yet the matters which are essential for 
this brief sketch of a remarkable school have a good 
degree of probability. They are derived from the his- 
tories of Grote, Thirlwall, and ^Ym. Smith, and from 
the eloquent but somewhat lengthy account of Pytha- 
goras and his doctrines in the recent revision of Karl 
Schmidt's Geschichte der Padagogik. Zeller's Pre- 
Socratic Philosophy, Vol. I. also has has a destructive 
criticism of much of the Pythagorean fable. 

Although the precise date of the birth and death of 
Pythagoras is uncertain, it is probable that his career 
was included between the years 580 and 500 B. C. 
Born in Samos, educated in music and the poets by 
Hermodamus and in natural history bv Anaximander, 




Thales. 640-546 B. C. 




Pythagoras, 582-500 B. C. 



and encouraged by the aged sage Thales to study in 
Egypt, he stopped on his journey thither at Sidon, 
where he was indoctrinated by the Phoenician priests 



HIS LIFE 143 

in the mysteries of their rejigion, and in their specu- 
lations about nature and its phenomena. 

He next resided, it is supposed, twenty-two years in 
Egypt, where he was received into the intimacy of the 
priesthood, and like Moses became learned in all the 
wisdom of the Egyptians. As well their religious 
views and speculations, as the sciences for which Egypt 
was then famous, were said to have been revealed to 
him, and the influence of these is thought to be appar- 
ent in some of the Pythagorean doctrines. He is 
thought also by some to have enlarged his views of 
science and religion by visiting Persia and Mesopo- 
tamia, and even India.* 

Returning to his native island, he found the condi- 
tion of affairs little in harmony with his purposes, and 
hence he fixed his abode at Crotona, in the Greek set- 
tlement of southern Italy, where he founded the school 
which we are to describe. He is described as handsome 
and imposing in appearance, gifted with rare and im- 
pressive eloquence, and glowing with religious enthusi- 
asm and with the zeal of a reformer. These gifts and 
the fame of his travels and of his learning, drew to 
him crowds of admirers, whom he is represented as 
addressing in separate assemblages, youths, children, 
citizens and women, urging upon them the moral 
duties befitting their stations, and bringing about such 
a reform of manners as to introduce a kind of golden 
age of virtue in all southern Italy. 

The violent and disastrous close of his school through 

*Zeller, Vol. I of his " Pre-Socratic Philosophj- ", shows that no reli- 
ance can be placed on the accounts of the early life and travels of Pytha- 
goras. His visit to Sidon and Egypt is more probable than other travels 
ascribed to him. 



144 PYTHAGORAS 

a popular outbreak gives strong reason to doubt the 
extent of the reform that is attributed to him. Prob- 
ably it was limited to the aristocracy, with whom his 
social and political ideas seem best to have harmonized. 
From this class probably were drawn the disciples for 
the school which he established, and the entire influ- 
ence of the school was alleged to be aristocratic. 

The instruction that was given was twofold in char- 
acter; first by public lectures given to his older adher- 
ents many of whom were business men or magistrates, 
to whom he discoursed on morals and government, on 
the immortality of the soul and retribution after death, 
and on other subjects of analogous character; and 
second the instruction that was given in the school 
proper, which was what we of to-day should call a 
boarding school. 

The students were lodged, it is said to the number 
of three hundred, in separate lodging houses which 
surrounded a hall in which the instruction was given. 
The expenses were paid out of a common treasury, in- 
to which each one put on entrance a larger or smaller 
sum according to his ability; and, in case he did not 
make good his place in the school, a just amount was 
returned to him when he departed. This school fund 
was managed and expended by the young men under 
the oversight of Pythagoras; and by means of the 
management of the school expenditures, he endeavored 
to inculcate economy, unselfishness, a community of 
interests, and a sentiment of complete equality. 

The government of the school, which had a like pur- 
pose, was the expression of his idea that " friendly 
companions should have all things in common "; and 



HIS SCHOOL 145 

the organization was intended to be that of " a great 
family, based on moral equality and grounded on com- 
plete harmony of thought, feeling, and will". 

To make such principles of organization and such 
a mode of government possible, great care was needed 
in scrutinizing the character of those who should be 
admitted to the school. Pythagoras relied much on 
his knowledge of physiognomy; but besides this, all 
applicants were carefully examined as to capacity — 
for Pythagoras did not believe in wasting time to 
remedy the niggardliness of nature, — as to behavior to- 
wards parents and friends, whether they were given to 
laughing or empty chattering, how well they compre- 
hended what was said to them, and whether they were 
fond of learning and amenable to discipline. It is 
very evident, if all this was true, that Pythagoras did 
not intend to open a reformatory for corrupt boys, nor 
a training place for well-meaning blockheads; but a 
school for choice spirits, where they might be prepared 
for a career of high usefulness, aristocratic indeed, 
but in the very best sense of the word. 

Even when admitted to the establishment after this 
searching inquiry, pupils had still to undergo a kind 
of novitiate or probation in the outer circle of the 
school, which lasted to the end of the formal educa- 
tion, before they were admitted into the select inner 
circle, where they received instruction from the mas- 
ter face to face, no longer concealed from their sight 
by a curtain as before, and where they were inducted 
into the inner mysteries of his doctrine. 

For the novices, the first three years were years of 
silence and purification: years during which were 



146 PYTHAGORAS 

tested their powers of memory, their zeal for learning, 
their apprehensiveness for what was said. During 
these years they listened to the words of the master 
who, surrounded by his tested pupils, was hidden from 
their sight by a curtain, silently absorbed what was 
said, meditated deeply upon it, and abstained from 
questions even on what they did not comprehend. 
This probation seems to have been intended to confirm 
habits of fixed attention and patient reflection, and to 
fix expectation on what should come later, that the 
souls of the youth might be more receptive for instruc- 
tion : it appears admirably adapted to accomplish these 
purposes. 

If the period of novitiate was satisfactorily passed, 
the young men were received into the penetralia of 
the school, where they received instruction from the 
lips of the master, and entered on an independent 
course of scientific training adapted to their individual 
difl;erences of taste and capacity; for it was a merit of 
Phythagoras, and evinces his knowledge of human 
nature, that at every step of the progress of his pupils 
he had regard to such differences. They were ex- 
pected to write what they had heard from the master; 
to reflect deeply on whatever they had gained; to con- 
sider at night what they had learned during the day, 
after carefully planning in the morning what they 
should attempt; to express their thoughts and to con- 
verse about their studies with their teachers and com- 
panions. 

Pythagoras believed that the essential results of in- 
struction should reveal themselves in memory, for one 
knows nothing which he does not remember; in clear- 



HIS DOCTKIIfE 147 

ness and dexterity of understanding; and in an inquir- 
ing mind. His fundamental idea however was to im- 
press a definite, exact, and moral style of thinking, 
through reflection on the wise maxims of the ancient 
sages, a reflection which should make clear to the soul 
all their depths of meaning. 

Thus "moral education with him took precedence 
of scientific, and practical philosophy was valued 
above theoretical," with religion dominant as the basis 
for all. Indeed religious observances were so strongly 
emphasized in this school as to stamp it with a pietis- 
tic character analogous to that of Francke's institu- 
tions, twenty-two centuries later. Three times daily 
the pupils were to offer sacrifices to the gods, and in 
all things to cultivate habits of moral thoughtfulness. 

All things desirable, religion included, were to be 
made habitual, for he thought habit the weightiest 
factor in education. "Choose," he says, "for thy- 
self the best life, and habit will make it pleasing to 
thee." 

His method of teaching had the crowning merit that 
it demanded concentrated attention and the most com- 
plete self-activity on the part of his disciples. It was 
usually in the form of brief maxims presented to the 
young men, the deeper meaning of which they were 
to discover and to apply in the development of their 
character. These maxims, in accordance with the re- 
ligious tone of his character, were mostly moral and 
religious; e. g. "The strength of the soul consists in 
temperance;" "No one is free who does not in all 
things rule himself; " " It is cowardly to abandon the 



148 PYTHAGORAS 

post assigned us by the gods before they permit us to 
do so; " etc. 

Through means such as this, he strove to initiate his 
pupils into the service of the god of purity and har- 
mony, — the perfect Harmony which was the key note 
of his pedagogy. His idea of the music of the spheres, 
inaudible to us only because our ears are dulled by the 
confused din of this world, has become famous. But, 
as for the universe, so also for man, harmony is the 
highest law of life: "the harmony of the spheres 
should find its echo also in the spirit of man." 

In the system of Pythagoras, the harmony of the 
body is health; of the soul, virtue. Hence for bodily 
harmony, he used gymnastics to promote health while 
putting all physical capabilities completely under the 
control of the will; sickness as a disturbance of bodily 
harmony was to be avoided or healed by a proper diet. 

Like other Greeks, Pythagoras placed music in the 
foremost rank amongst the means of spiritual educa- 
tion, from its power in training passions, softening 
manners otherwise rude and hard, and bringing har- 
mony into the feelings and character; and to him are 
ascribed certain discoveries in music, especially the 
universal relations of musical notes. 

For strictly scientific education, he preferred mathe- 
matics, which he considered the noblest of sciences, 
not only as fitting for the study of astronomy wnich 
he held in esteem, but also as being the best prepara- 
tion for abstract thought. Some discoveries in geom- 
etry are attributed to him, and, as is generally known, 
he ascribed to numbers many mystic meanings and 
properties. It is possible that the interest of Pytha- 



HARMONY PREDOMINANT 149 

goras in the mathematics powerfully influenced the 
Greeks to make their remarkable progress in geometry. 

The great aim of the pedagogy of Pythagoras which 
he embodied in the word harmony, has been so well 
stated in the words of another, that I cannot forbear 
to quote the following passages: "At birth he believed 
that man is very imperfect and inclined by nature to 
insolence. Through an uninterrupted education, con- 
tinued during the entire life, he must be freed from 
his inborn faults and elevated to purity of heart and 
spirit. His task on earth is to gain true wisdom, wis- 
dom with regard to those subjects which in their 
nature are unchangeable and eternal. But wisdom 
has no other end than through her instructions to free 
the human spirit from the slavish yoke of passions and 
sensuality, to guide it to likeness with God, and to 
make it worthy finally to enter the assemblage of the 
blessed."* To this may be added that evidently his 
aim was, not so much to furnish his disciples with a 
large supply of positive knowledge, as to habituate 
them to deep and searching thought on the weightiest 
subjects. 

Pythagoras preceded Socrates and Plato in express- 
ing the idea that the work of the teacher is too noble 
to be paid for; since he is reported to have said: 
*' Those who permit themselves to be paid for this ser- 
vice stand lower than sculptors who work for money; 
for these work upon inert matter, whilst the teacher 
should further the efforts of the entire living human 
nature after virtue and wisdom." 

The disastrous termination of this enterprise of 

* Schraidt-Geschichte der Padagogik, 4th ed. p. 536. 



150 PYTHAGORAS 

Pythagoras has already been mentioned. The institu- 
tion was always strongly aristocratic in its constitution 
and sympathies, and thus aroused resentments in a 
time when the current of opinion in both Greece and 
her colonies was setting strongly in the direction of 
democracy. Hence in a successful democratic out- 
break, the popular fury was turned against Pythagoras 
and his followers. Pythagoras is said to have escaped 
and to have died later at Metapontum, where his tomb 
was shown in the days of Cicero 

It is probable, however, that his removal to Meta- 
pontum and his death preceded the disaster to his 
school. Xo writings of either Pythagoras or his im- 
mediate disciples have been preserved, possibly from 
the disaster by which the establishment was broken up; 
all accounts of him and his teaching are of a consid- 
erably later date, and hence much of doubt must al- 
ways rest upon many things which concern this most 
interesting educational experiment. It has been 
treated solely in its educational aspects as a school; 
though I am well aware that historians like Grote and 
Thirl wall regard it as a religio-philosophic organization 
or club, having a remote analogy with the order of 
Jesuits. It is evident that the two points of view have 
no essential difference; and Grote says of Pythagoras 
that " he was rather a missionary and schoolmaster 
than politician." 

The predominant character of the institution in 
either view was educational ; and its sole interest to us 
in this connection arises, not from its philosophic and 
religious doctrines, which were influential for a long 
time after the death of Pythagoras, and some of which 



RESEMBLANCE TO SPARTAN" EDUCATION 151 

have a marked Egyptian coloring, but from its origin- 
ality as an educational organization, and from the strik- 
ing character of its reputed pedagogic tenets and 
methods at so early a period of European history. 

Professor Schmidt regards the pedagogy of Pytha- 
goras as Spartan in spirit. Any resemblances to justify 
this opinion must be derived from the aristocratic tone 
of the institution, from the life of the members in 
com.mon, and from the ascetic nature of their disci- 
pline. With respect to the first point it needs only to 
be said that in that age aristocratic opinions were by 
no means peculiar to the Lacedemonians and Pytha- 
goreans. As regards the second, although the syssitia 
or common table of Sparta bears some remote external 
analogy with the life in common of the Pythagoreans, 
yet the differences are sufficiently striking, especially 
in the regard which was paid by the latter to the indi- 
viduality of their members. 

If we go beyond these superficial resemblances, and 
look to the essential spirit of the two, the unlikeness 
becomes very apparent. The purposes for which gym- 
nastics was used by Pythagoras and by the Spartans 
were entirely unlike. This is equally true in regard 
to music and to moral training in general; whilst the 
attention given by Pythagoras to mental development, 
and the emphasis which he laid upon studies like 
mathematics, physics, and metaphysics, bear no re- 
semblance whatever to the stolid indifference which the 
Spartans always displayed to all pursuits not referring 
to war. The Spartan education looked, not to har- 
mony, but to a brutal one-sidedness; whilst harmony 



152 PYTHAGORAS 

in its fullest sense was the very key-note of the Pytha- 
gorean pedagogy. 

It is to be regretted that so much which is reported 
concerning Pythagoras has a mythical aspect, and that 
little save the fact of his existence in a certain cen- 
tury and that he founded a peculiar educational estab- 
lishment, is of unquestioned authenticity. Yet the 
general idea and plan of this interesting experiment, 
as here set forth, has about it more of intrinsic credi- 
bility than most of the Pythagorean narrations; and 
while no one is now in a position positively to affirm 
or deny anything that is reported with regard to it, it 
has still, even in its problematic form, a high degree 
of interest in educational history. 

USEFUL REFEEENCES FOR STUDENTS 

Grote.— History of Greece— C. XXXVII. 

Davidson. — "Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals" p. 57, 
— for Golden Words of Pythagoras. 
Smith. — History of Greece — C.XIII. 




CHAPTER XI 

SOCRATES AND HIS METHOD 

The life, character, and death of Socrates are too 
well known to need any men- 
tion of them here. Very 
few men of any age have 
left on history so vivid an 
impression of their person- 
ality as he; and yet he did 
not distinguish himself in 
either war or statecraft, nor 
did he leave behind him a 

single written"; line. The Socrates, 469-399, b. c. 

ideas which he expressed on social, political, and moral 
subjects, in which alone he was interested, though novel 
and interesting in the oth century B. C, have been 
mostly superseded by speculation more complete and 
satisfactory; but his "power of intellectually working 
on others", and the method by which he brought his 
ideas to bear upon his hearers, are of unfailing inter- 
est to all times, and to teachers more than to any other 
class of persons. 

Two of his devoted disciples, Plato and Xenophon, 
have given us examples of his method. The former, 
a great, original genius," doubtless presents the spirit 
of the method in some of his dialogues in which 
Socrates is introduced as one of the interlocutors, but 

(153) 



154 SOCRATES 

with probably a strong coloring of his own; while 
Xenophon, a man of great clearness of intellect rather 
than of philosophic depth, professes to give in his 
Memorabilia the form and substance of the teachings 
of his master. 

The method is the same in the presentation of the 
speculative philosopher and of the man of action. 
Both show that the examples by which Socrates illus- 
trated his teachings and tested the comprehension of 
his hearers, were drawn from the most familiar facts 
of daily life in Athens, and that he skilfully " varied 
his topics, and queries to adapt them to the individual 
with whom he had to deal." Both show that it was 
of the essence of his methods " that mind should work 
on mind by short questions and answers, in order to 
generate new thoughts" in his interlocutors, or to bring 
former vague ideas into new and more exact relations. 
Both also show that his method had two very distinct 
and strongly marked phases, the one positive, and the 
other negative. 

The positive phase, which Socrates himself called 
the maieutic, i. e., the aiding in the birth of ideas, ap- 
pears in those dialogues in which he develops into 
distinct consciousness ideas hitherto confused or latent 
in the minds of his hearers; or, by putting familiar 
experiences into novel relations, gives a new direction 
to the entire current of thought. Examples of this 
may be found in chapters 6th and 7th, Book 2d of the 
Memorabilia, of which one is a charming dialogue on 
the choice of friends and the means by which they 
may be gained, while in the other, Socrates teaches a 
friend how to attach the members of his household 



THE MAIEUTIC METHOD 155 

more closely to himself by employing them to relieVe 
his poverty. Chapter 7th, Book 3d of the same work, 
in which he encourages an able but timid friend to 
engage in public business, may also be mentioned as 
another example of similar character; and chapter 
10th of Book 3d affords opportunity for a not too 
lengthy illustrative extract. 

" One day visiting Parrhasius, the painter, and en- 
tering into conversation with him, he said, ' Pray, 
Parrhasius, is not painting the representation of visible 
objects ? At least you represent substances, imitating 
them by means of color, whether they be concave or 
convex, dark or light, hard or smooth, fresh or 'old.' 

" P. ' \Yhat you say is true.' 

" S. ' And when you would represent beautiful fig- 
ures, do you— since it is not easy to find one person 
with every part perfect — select out of many the most 
beautiful parts of each, and thus represent figures 
beautiful in every part ? ' 

"P. 'We do so.' 

" S. ' And do you also imitate the disposition of the 
mind, as it may be most persuasive, most agreeable, 
most friendly, most full of regret, or most amiable? 
or is this inimitable ? ' 

" P. ' How can that be imitated, Socrates, which 
has neither proportion nor color, nor any of the 
qualities which you just now mentioned, and which is 
not even a visible object ? ' 

" S. ' Is it not often observable in a man that he 
regards others with a friendly or unfriendly look ? ' 

"P. 'I think so.' 



156 SOCRATES 

" S. 'Is this then possible to be represented in the 
eyes ? ' 

" P. ' Certainly.' 

" S. ' And at the good or ill fortune of people's 
friends, do those who are affected thereby appear to 
have the same sort of look as those who are not ? ' 

" P. ' No, indeed; for they look cheerful at their 
good, and sad at their evil fortune.' 

" S. ' Is it then possible to imitate these looks ? ' 

" P. ' Unquestionably.' 

" S. ' Surely also nobleness and generosity of dis- 
position, meanness and illiberality, modesty and in- 
telligence, insolence and stupidity, show themselves 
in both the looks and gestures of men, whether they 
stand or move.' 

" P. ' What you say is just.' 

" S. ')Can these peculiarities be imitated ? ' 

*' P. ' Certainly they can.' 

" S. ' Do you then think that men look with more 
pleasure on paintings in which beautiful and good and 
lovely traits are exhibited, or on those in which the 
deformed and evil and hateful are represented ? ' 

"P. ' There is a very great difference indeed, 
Socrates.' " 

This dialogue has been selected for its brevity, 
rather than for any superiority that it possesses as a 
specimen of the Socratic maieutic. It has however an 
interest of its own; because at the time when this 
famous painter was thus made distinctly conscious of 
the principles of expression and selection that underlie 
his art, it is probable he was still young and compara- 
tively little known. What influence it may have had 



SOCRATIC IRONY 157 

on the development of his remarkable genius, which 
was especially notable for its command of the visible 
signs of emotion, can be matter of conjecture only. 

The negative aspect of the method of Socrates is 
that which appears in the dialogues, sufficiently numer- 
ous in both Plato and Xenophon, in which he does 
battle with " the seeming and conceit of knowledge 
without the reality ", revealing pretentious ignorance 
to itself and thus endeavoring to goad it to the attain- 
ment of real knowledge; or analyzing by skilful ques- 
tions the vague notions attached to some fine-sounding 
but empty general term, and showing the absurd con- 
sequences or even contradictions to which they led, 
with the purpose of promoting clear and definite ideas 
on subjects of great social and political importance. 

This negative use of his method is called the Socratic 
irony. In reality, as it appears in many of the ironic 
dialogues, it is not so much irony in the moder nsense 
in which the word is used, as a keenly critical mode 
of procedure, of which there appears at that time to 
have been a great need in Athens, where every province 
of intellectual activity was infested with vague specu- 
lations whose sole basis was the shadowy and undefined 
notions attached to general terms. From such notions, 
and from the dangers to which they lead, no civilized 
age or nation is wholly free, as witness the repeated 
disastrous attempts to augment national prosperity by 
cheapening money, for a single example; but of such 
notions, the acutely intellectual but uncritical Atheni- 
ans in the time of Socrates seem to have had an un- 
commonly large and varied stock. There is no doubt 
that the death of Socrates on a criminal accusation 



158 SOCRATES 

was the direct result of his efforts to dispel such vague 
ideas; since thereby he roused the enmity of many 
men, already prominent and powerful in the state, 
whom he had pitilessly cross-questioned and exposed 
as ignorant of what they ought to know. 

A good example of the negative or ironic method 
may be found in chapter 6th, Book 3d of the Memora- 
bilia, in which Socrates succeeds in convincing Glau- 
con, the brother of Plato, a youth ambitious of assum- 
ing the duties of statesmanship, that he was still ignor- 
ant of all the things which a statesman should know. 
An extract from the beginning of this dialogue will 
give a good illustration of this phase of the Socratic 
method. 

" Meeting Glaucon by chance, he first stopped him 
by addressing him as follows that he might be willing 
to listen to him: ' Glaucon,' said he, ' have you formed 
an intention to govern the state for us ? ' 'I have, 
Socrates,' replied Glaucon. ' By Jupiter,' rejoined 
Socrates, ' it is an honorable office if any among men 
be so: for it is certain that if you attain your object, 
you will be able yourself to secure w^hatever you may 
desire, and will be in a condition to benefit your 
friends; you will raise your father's house and increase 
the power of your country; you will be celebrated, 
first of all in your own city, and afterwards through- 
out Greece, and perhaps also, like Themistocles, among 
the barbarians, and wherever you may be, you will be 
an object of general admiration.' 

" Glaucon, hearing this, was highly elated and 
cheerfully stayed to listen. Socrates next proceeded 
to say: ' But it is plain, Glaucon, that if you wish to 



lEONIC METHOD 159 

be honored you must beuefit the state.' ' Certainly,' 
answered Glaucon. ' Then in the name of the gods,' 
said Socrates, ' do not hide from us how you intend to 
act, but inform us with what proceeding you will be- 
gin to benefit the state.' 

" But as Glaucon was silent, as if just considering 
how to begin, Socrates said: ' As, for example, if you 
wished to aggrandize the family of a friend, you would 
endeavor to make it richer, tell me whether in like 
manner you will also endeavor to make the state 
richer?' 'Assuredly,' said he. 'Would it then be 
richer if its revenues were increased ? ' ' That is at 
least probable,' said Glaucon. ' Tell me then,' pro- 
ceeded Socrates, ' from what the revenues of the state 
arise and what is their amount; for you have doubtless 
considered, in order that if any of them fall short you 
may make good the deficiency, and that if any of 
them fail you may procure fresh supplies.' ' These 
matters, by Jupiter, I have not considered,' replied 
Glaucon. ' Well then,' said Socrates, ' if you have 
omitted to consider this point, tell me at least the 
annual expenditure of the state; for you doubtless 
mean to retrench whatever is superfluous in it.' ' In- 
deed,' replied Glaucon, ' I have not yet had time to 
turn my attention to that subject.' ' We will, there- 
fore,' said Socrates, ' put off making our state richer 
for the present; for how is it possible for him who is 
igujorant of its expenditures and its income to manage 
those matters ? ' " And so throughout this dialogue, 
proceeding from point to point, he shows the young 
man his ignorance of statecraft, and that "if he de- 
sires to gain esteem and reputation in his country, he 



160 SOCRATES 

must first gain a knowledge of what he wishes to do."* 
The method of Socrates in both the forms in which 
he used it, presents us with what was certainly a 
novelty in his day, — a procedure thoroughly inductive 
in its character, advancing always from the particular 
to the general, and aiming either to insure clearness 
and precision of ideas, or to dispel the pleasing illusion 
that one has a real knowledge of wnat is embodied in 
general terms whose import he has never troubled 
himself to examine, and of which therefore he can 
give no account. Xenophon (Book 4th, Chap. 6th of 
the Memorabilia), makes this remark on his method: 
*' When he himself went through any subject in argu- 
ment, he proceeded upon propositions of which the 
truth was generally acknowledged, thinking that a sure 
foundation, was thus laid for his reasoning; and he 
used to say that Homer had ascribed to Ulysses the 
character of a sure orator, as being able to found his 
reasoning on points acknowledged by all mankind." 

Grote, in his admirable account of Socrates (His- 
tory of Greece, Part 2, C. 68) emphasizes an important 
result of the Socratic method in the definitions of 
general terms, of which many examples occur in the 
Memorabilia, and which later were " improved by 
Plato and embodied and enlarged by Aristotle in a 
comprehensive system of formal logic." 

Dr. Dittos concisely sums up the characteristics and 
the aim of Socratic method. f " He did not set out 
from definitions and principles and abstractions to 

*See Fitch's Lectures in Teaching, Syracuse edition, pp. 177-181, for 
questioning and another example. 

tSchule der Padagogik, Part 4th, § 12. 



EDUCATIONAL VIEWS 161 

deduce from them the concrete phenomena of the 
world and of life; but from determinate motives and 
observed examples, to pass from these inductively to 
concepts and convictions. Hence he did not present 
to his auditors a ready-made system of his own; but 
he placed himself at their standpoint, brought them 
to an exact expression of their opinions, and, if these 
were correct, he confirmed them, and pushed them to 
their implications (maieutic); but if they were based 
on errors, he let them pass at first as true, but only to 
show by their consequences that they were untenable 
(ironic). Socrates strove with special ardor for pre- 
cise ideas; the aim of his teaching was the eradication 
of superficiality, and the generation of self-knowledge, 
reasonable thought, moral conviction, and force of 
character." 

Aside from his merits as the originator of his method, 
Socrates held some opinions with regard to education, 
its aim, and its means, which are worthy of remark. 

1st. He deemed it an unworthy thing to accept pay- 
ment for his services in instructing others; and when 
one of the sophists derided him on this account, alleg- 
ing that he thus showed that he had no knowledge 
which in his opinion was of any value, Socrates in his 
reply put those who take pay forgiving instruction on 
a level with the most degraded of human beings, call- 
ing them prostitutes of wisdom; whilst he alleged that 
he taught useful things to those whom he thought 
deserving that he might attach them to him as friends, 
which he deemed the only proper recompense — a 
species of payment, however, ill adapted for the sup- 
port of a family. 



162 SOCRATES 

2d. He was a pronounced Utilitarian, valuing what 
was learned solely on account of its usefulness. Yet 
it should be observed that what he deemed useful was 
such in so high a sense that it differed little from what 
we would call a disinterested discipline. With Socrates^ 
the practical and useful was to gain habits of self-con- 
trol and virtue that one might become more a valuable 
citizen, and to attain clear ideas on social, moral, and 
political subjects that one might order his conduct 
aright in all the relations of life. 

The Socratic utilitarianism was therefore one which 
emphasized conduct and character, and which would 
reject as useless all subjects beyond the elements that 
did not obviously promote right living. Hence he 
dissuades his adherents from pursuing such branches 
as geometry, physics, and astronomy beyond the barest 
usable elements (Mem. B. 4, C. 7). 

Of geometry he believed that it was profitless to 
pursue it " to diagrams difficult to understand ", and 
that it >' was enough to consume a man's whole life, 
and hinder him from attaining many useful branches 
of knowledge." Obviously he did not recognize, as 
Plato did, the great disciplinary value of this branch. 

As to physics and astronomy, he went farther, 
believing that speculations as to their causes and 
modes of operation were not only profitless but wrong; 
" for he did not think that such matters were discov- 
erable by men, nor did he believe that those acted 
dutifully towards the gods who searched into things 
which they did not wish to make known." This 
opinion of Socrates will appear less strange to us when 
we consider that twenty-one centuries later a philoso- 



DISTRUST OF NATURAL SCIEI^CE 163 

pher like Locke could say in his " Thoughts on Edu- 
cation " (§ 190): " Xatural philosophy as a specula- 
tive science, I imagine we have none, and perhaps I 
may think I have reason to say we never shall be able 
to make a science of it. The works of nature are 
contrived by a Wisdom and operate by ways too far 
surpassing our faculties to discover or capacities to 
conceive, for us ever to be able to reduce them to a 
science." 

The ideas of both these men, which to us, in the 
light of modern discoveries, seem so strange and al- 
most whimsical, were based on the condition of these 
sciences in their days, and even more, in the case of 
Socrates, on the merely speculative methods by which 
so-called researches were conducted. Yet we have no 
reason to suppose that, had sciences been ever so ad- 
vanced, Socrates would have entertained any different 
opinion of their value as educational means. Wholly 
utilitarian as were his views, regarding little if at all 
the disciplinary effects of studies, his ideas were limited 
narrowly to such positive knowledge as would make a 
man more efficient as a member of society and the state. 

His educational views seem to me therefore to be of 
little moment, save as they mark a stage in the progress 
of human thought. But the Method he devised, the 
modes in which he used it, the precision for which he 
strove in fixing the import and extent of application 
of those general terms which must always be man's 
chief means of conveying his ideas exactly to his fel- 
low-man; and finally the selection which he always 
made of materials for instruction which were easily 
within the comprehension of his hearers, in which last 



164 SOCRATES 

he has never been excelled save by the Great Teacher, 
— are of enduring interest to all intelligent men, and 
to none more than to teachers of youth. 

USEFUL REEEREN^CE FOR STUDENTS 

Grote.— History of Greece, Part 2d, Chapter 68. 

Xenophou's Memorabilia of Socrates. 

Plato. — The Socratic Dialogues. 

Davidson. — Aristotle, etc. Chapter I on New Education. 



CHAPTER XII 




Plato, 429-347, B. C- 



educatio:n-al views of plato 

Plato, whose long life extended from 429 to 347 B. 
C, was never married, and 
hence he had not, like Aris- 
totle, any parental experi- 
ence to modify his educa- 
tional ideas. His views 
therefore are rather those of 
a philosopher and theoretic 
statesman than of a father 
or teacher. He considers 
education as the most im- 
, portant of the duties of the 
state, because he sees its great significance as part of 
the science and art of politics. The works in which 
his thoughts on education are best developed, are both 
political, the Republic and the Laws. The former 
contains a highly fanciful and impracticable scheme of 
class education, as an integral part of his beautiful 
Utopian dream of a communistic state in which philoso- 
phers should rule; the second and later work, in formu- 
lating a practical code of laws for a small common- 
wealth, sets forth the nature of the education which 
he deems essential to assure the success and perpetuity 
of a state. Both contain not a few thoughts which 

(165) 



166 PLATO 

lire of unfailing interest to the student of educational 
history. 

With the scheme of the Republic we have to do only 
in so far as it concerns our present purpose. It is of 
an education according to classes, the membership of 
which should be determined not by birth but by merit. 
The members of the base-metal class, subdivided into 
husbandmen and craftsmen, are to be trained, each 
for the special employment for which he is best fitted. 
Those of the precious-metal, or ruling and warlike 
class, are to be educated in all that gives strength and 
harmony to both body and soul. As the condition of 
unity of purpose and action, they are to have all things 
in common, not only goods, but also wives and children. 

The most promising among them, besides the general 
education, are to be further trained in the abstract 
sciences, numbers, geometry, and astronomy, " to com- 
pel the soul to use pure intelligence in the search after 
pure health." This training, by proceeding from the 
visible and audible to being intellectually appre- 
hended, is to be the preparative for dialectics or reflec- 
tion, which "gradually draws and leads upwards the 
eye of the soul " to the attainment of the sublimest 
philosophic wisdom, and which Plato thus establishes 
*' as a bulwark of moral training, — and a complement 
of scientific education." 

The abstract branches are to be taught in their ele- 
ments in childhood and youth, — 'pleasantly^ " for a free- 
man ought to learn nothing under slavish coercion." 
From the age of twenty, the elite youth are to receive 
until thirty a deep and thoroughly systematic instruc- 
tion in the same studies, that they may apprehend their 



167 

connection with real^ i. e., abstract being, as the final 
test of their fitness for dialectics. At the close of this 
trial period, those finally chosen to be trained as phil- 
osophic thinkers and rulers, are to devote themselves 
for another five years to dialectics, i. e., to pure ab- 
stract reasoning on the deepest and weightiest]subjects. 

Then at the age of thirty-five, equipped with the 
results of the deepest reflection, and, — to adopt the 
figure of Plato, — with the eye of the soul trained to 
gaze unblenched on the resplendent sun of truth, they 
are to descend again into the dim cave of this world's 
affairs, to accustom their eyes again to its gloom, and 
to form true judgments of its shadows, since they 
have gazed with unveiled vision on the realities by 
which they are cast, whilst they perform the minor 
offices of the state and share the dangers of war. 
Fifteen years of this rectification of theory by prac- 
tice, brings our philosopher, at the ripe age of fifty, to 
fitness for his highest duties in ruling the state and 
preparing others to fill his place, before he departs in 
honor "to the islands of the blessed". 

The scheme of education presented in the Republic, 
though glaringly impossible, is at least suggestive of 
the care which Plato deemed needful to be exercised 
in the training of those who are to bear rule among 
men. With him, the selection and training of legis- 
lators and officers is by no means to be trusted to the 
accident of birth or to the chances of popular choice, 
by which hitherto the course of this world's affairs 
has been conducted after a tolerable fashion, and seems 
likely to be to the end. Amongst all the beauties 
with which the Republic abounds, none is more charm- 



168 PLATO 

ing than the allegory of the cavern to which allusion 
has just been made, and which, opening the 7th Book 
of the work, permeates the entire argument like a 
golden thread, illustrating the dimness of vision as 
regards their highest interests which characterizes the 
race [of men, and the means whereby alone, in the 
opinion of Plato, the requisite certainty of apprehen- 
sion may be gained. 

Aside from beauties of illustration and theories of 
government, the educational doctrines of the Repub- 
lic and of the Laws are to a large extent similar. 
Both lay the same emphasis on the necessity and 
efficiency of education. Both designate gymnastics 
and music as the proper means therefor, give the 
same extension of meaning to music, and ascribe to it 
the same efficiency in shaping souls and " contributing 
to a pleasure of a happy sort". They insist equally 
on a careful selection of authors and parts of authors 
to be taught to youth, though with more detailed 
statement in the Republic; and they would both have 
music, when duly selected, established unalterably as 
the best means of assuring permanency to states. 

Both likewise insist that the education of women, at 
least those of the favored classes, shall be nearly identi- 
cal with that of men. In both it is assumed to be 
easily proven that the welfare of the individual is 
sufficiently cared for when all are so trained that the 
well-being of the state is assured: men are to be 
trained for an orderly and virtuous life in the state; 
they may perish, but the state will endure. Since 
however the Laws, as the work of his later years, 
doubtless voices the more mature views of Plato on 



"the laws" 169 

the nature and aims of education, it merits a more 
detailed consideration at our hands, with such inci- 
dental references to the Republic as may serve to 
illustrate a few points more clearly. 

We notice in the Laws that the class scheme of the 
Republic, with its communism and its idea of educat- 
ing only the ruling military class, has been abandoned, 
and in its place we have the proposal for universal and 
compulsory education that has already been quoted (see 
page 114). It is obvious from these passages that Plato 
would go as far as the most advanced modern nations 
in the direction of compulsory education; and that, 
contrary to Athenian practice, he includes women in 
his scheme, for the reason, more than once urged, that 
they constitute one-half of every state, and that the 
state needs their best services as well as those of men. 
Also he would have those only selected as teachers of 
music and literature who are wholly in love with what 
they teach. 

The supervision of the education thus proposed 
Plato considers "far the greatest of the chief offices 
in the state"; and hence that it should be filled by 
selecting him " who is in all respects the best person 
in the state ". He is to be at least fifty years of age, 
and the father of lawful children; and he is to be 
chosen for a term of five years, by a secret ballot of 
certain of the magistrates, who vote for him whom 
they think to be best, in the temple of Apollo, the 
god of music. 

Plato thus defines education: "A perfectly correct 
nurture ought to show itself able to give to both bodies 
and souls all the beauty and all the perfection of 



170 PLATO 

which they are susceptible." To secure the bodily- 
beauty and grace contemplated in this admirable 
definition, he prescribes free infantile sports, which, 
he says, when children come together they almost in- 
vent of themselves; the avoidance with the young, as 
well of luxury which renders them morose and 
irascible as of excessive and rustic servitude which 
makes them abject and illiberal; and finally the avoid- 
ance of all things which might terrify the child, and 
sow in it the seeds of a timid and cowardly disposition. 
At the age of six the regular education is to begin 
with gymnastics, by learning the exercises that prepare 
for war, in which he would have girls also practised so 
far as their strength will permit. Music, so far at 
least as that term includes intellectual culture, he 
would defer to the tenth year. 

With Plato, the purpose of gymnastics is two-fold : 
to gain lightness and grace of movement while *' imi- 
tating the diction of the muses " and preparing to join 
harmoniously in the worship of the gods, the means 
for attaining which was to be dancing; whilst for pro- 
moting health and acquiring strength and suppleness, 
he would rely chiefly on wrestling, as being most use- 
ful for war, to which he adds exercises in the use of all 
warlike weapons and in military evolutions. He evi- 
dently intends that up to the age of ten the school 
training shall be purely physical, whilst any mental 
and moral effects that may result from this shall be 
mere necessary incidents of such a training when 
properly conducted. He however by no means over- 
looks such incidental effects as harmony and reverence, 
temperance and fortitude, courage and self-control, as 



HIS CURRICULUM 171 

Hikely to result from the practice of gymnastics in both 
the forms that he recommends. 

From the age of ten, literary culture under the 
•comprehensive name music is to be added to physical 
training. " For learning to read and write," he says, 
" three years would suffice for a boy ten years old; but 
to those who are thirteen, three years for mastering 
the lyre would be a moderate time." But hear this 
that the youths ought to learn and the masters to 
teach during this period. " They ought to labor at let- 
ters until they are able to write and read; but let us 
leave out of the account those whom nature has not 
fitted to become proficient in quickness and beauty 
within the years enjoined." 

He then proceeds to show what portions of litera- 
ture and what songs should be presented to the young, 
a subject which he had already treated more fully and 
with many examlpes in the 2d and 3d Books of the 
Republic. His proposal in the latter work amounts to 
a careful expurgation for school use of the works of 
Homer, Hesiod, and other esteemed poets and prose 
writers, in order that, "at an age when whatever 
opinions they receive are wont to be difficult to obliter- 
ate and immovable," nothing may be taught to youth 
through letters which might lessen their courage or 
relax their morals; or which, by presenting gods and 
heroes in any other than the best and loftiest aspects, 
*' might give to boys an excuse for wickedness or a war- 
rant for injustice." 

The principles for selection which he suggests are 
worthy of the consideration of educators in every 
age. With a like purpose, conceding that the comic 



172 PLATO 

and laughable should be known by well-taught citizens 
that they may be able the better to avoid what is 
ridiculous, Plato would have comedies performed only 
by slaves and hirelings, that their scenes may become 
contemptible by low and degrading associations. 

In addition to the literary contents of the much- 
including music, he proposes the same elementary 
knowledge of reckoning, of geometry, and of astron- 
omy which Socrates had recommended to his disciples, 
urging that these elements ought to be taught to all 
" as shameful for the many not to know ". He also 
praises the Egyptian method of teaching numbers by 
an objective procedure and in play. 

The higher reaches of the sciences, as we have al- 
ready seen in the Republic, he would reserve as a pre- 
paration of the very best minds for the sublimest re- 
flections. Curiously enough, he altogether omits from 
both his schemes of education any mention of history, 
although a knowledge of this so nearly concerns what 
he has at heart in both treatisies, namely how to organ- 
ize, ennoble, and perpetuate a state. And yet Hero- 
dotus, the father of history, and Thucydides, the great 
delineator of the Peloponnesian war, had already writ- 
ten works which have been the delight of succeeding 
ages, and which should have attracted the attention of 
one who strove to be the philosopher of politics. 

The idea of the great and pervasive influence of 
music in the modern sense of the word, which Plato 
agrees with other Greeks in emphasizing, has already 
been mentioned. It is most clearly set forth in the 
Republic, from which a few sentences may here be 
quoted. " Music and harmony enter largely into the 



MUSIC 173 

inmost part of the soul and powerfully affect it, at 
the same time introducing decorum into conduct and 
seemliness into the manner of all who are well trained. " 
Such persons " will understand the images of temper- 
ance, fortitude, liberality, and magnificence, and what- 
ever are akin to these, — and will despise them in 
neither great nor small instances, but conceive them to 
be parts of the same art and study." 

Such being the deep influence which this art exerts, 
*' we should be specially cautious about receiving a new 
kind of music, as endangering the whole (social fabric) ; 
for never are the measures of music altered without 
affecting the most important laws of the state; for it 
insensibly flows into the manners and pursuits of men; 
it finds its way into their contracts, — and from con- 
tracts it enters with much boldness into the laws and 
political establishments." 

In Book 7th of the Laws, he likewise attributes a 
similar importance to dances and sports. " Men do 
not consider," he says, " that the children who engage 
in new sports must necessarily become men different 
from those who were trained in the preceding genera- 
tion; and that becoming different, they will seek a 
different kind of life; and so seeking, will be desirous 
of other pursuits and laws; and no one fears lest after 
this, there come upon states what has just now been 
called the greatest evil," i. e., the craving for novel- 
ties. Hence, entertaining this belief, Plato suggests 
in the Eepublic and proposes in the Laws, that sports, 
dances, and music, both songs and melodies, shall be 
carefully selected by wise elders, and not only estab- 
lished by law but sanctioned by religion, that they 



174 PLATO 

may remain long unchanged; and thus, by giving the 
young the idea of something unalterable, may tend to 
permanence of political instructions. He also, in Book 
2d of the Laws, adduces Egypt as an example in point, 
evidently believing that the great duration of that 
state is due to this cause. Living as he did in the 
midst of political and moral fluctuation and change, 
he seeks anxiously for some counteraction to this in- 
stability, and rightly sees it in the correct and consis- 
tent education of the young. 

To the special means which he proposes, we at the 
present day do not attach so much importance as Plato 
did ; possibly music and sports affected the susceptible 
Greek more strongly than they do the practical Eng- 
lishman or American; possibly, too, caught in the rush 
of modern life, we underrate the permanency of the 
influence exerted on our youth by the songs they learn 
in school, and the games they practice in their leisure 
hours; but the principle on v/hich Plato acts, is true 
for all times and circumstances, and is one of which 
the most enlightened modern nations are becoming 
fully and actively conscious. The principle is this^ 
that none of the impressions made upon the young are 
trivial and unimportant; that whatever, like music, 
strongly moves their feelings is especially important; 
and that whatever is embodied in the education of a 
nation's youth, is sure to be ultimately greatly in- 
fluential in the nation's life. 

Such then are the chief educational ideas of Plato. 
They are of great interest, not more from their an- 
tiquity and the eminence of their sources, than from 
the fact that several of them, — such as the necessity 



EFFECT UP0:N" THE PRESENT 175 

of universal and compulsory education, the need of 
care in selecting literature for the young, and the im- 
portance of beginning any reform of national manners 
in the schools, — which are of recent introduction into 
educational practice, originated with the famous 
Athenian philosopher, twenty-two centuries ago. 

USEFUL REFERENCES FOR STUDENTS 

Plato.— The Republic, Books 2d, 3d and 7th. 
Plato.— The Laws, Books 2d, 3d, 6th, and 7th. 
Davidson — Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideals. 
Book 2d C. 3. 



CHAPTER XIII 



EDUCATIONAL VIEWS OF ARISTOTLE 




^ 



Aristotlk. ab4-322, 15. C. 



Aristotle, unlike his great master Plato, was twice 
married, and was the father 
of children for whom he 
cherished a tender affec- 
tion. A striking proof of 
his parental regard may be 
seen in the dedication of 
his chief ethical work to 
his son Nicomaeus, from 
whom it derives its title. 
He had also a valuable ped- 
agogic experience as tutor 
during several years of Alexander the Great, whose 
valued friend he remained during life. 

Thus both as parent and as teacher he had a prepar- 
ation for discussing educational questions which Plato 
lacked; and we should therefore expect to find in his 
pedagogical views a more practical cast than in those 
of Plato. In this expectation we sha,ll not be disap- 
pointed. Yet he was in full harmony with his age, in 
finding the supreme significance of man, and the chief 
worth of education, in fitness for the duties of intelli- 
gent and virtuous citizenship. Hence his theory of 
education forms the conclusion of his treatise on 
Politics. " We have already determined," he says, 

(176)" 



EDUCATION" AND THE STATE 177 

" what men ought naturally to be that they may make 
good subjects in a community ruled by laws; the rest 
of this discourse therefore, shall be upon education; 
for men learn some things by habits, other things by 
hearing them." 

In his ethical treatise, to which he refers at the out- 
set of this discussion, Aristotle had assigned as the 
purpose of action, the greatest possible good of the 
actor; had said that Politics, which is its chief object, 
has for its end the greatest happiness of the individual 
man and of men united in society; and had defined 
happiness as consisting in a complete activity of the 
soul in conformity to virtue and reason. Now the 
tendencies of men to strive after happiness by virtu- 
ous action, or to reap misery by sowing viciousness, he 
ascribes to early habituation. Hence it is not a thing 
indifferent, he says, to accustom one's self from the 
tenderest age to act in such or such a way; on the 
contrary, it is a very important thing, or rather it is 
everything.* Here then is a firm ethical bond con- 
necting right education, the habituation to righteous 
action, with the happiness of individual man and with 
that of men united in a state. 

Contrary to Athenian custom, i^ristotle would assign 
the duty of caring for education to the state. "It is 
the business of the legislator," he says, " to consider 
how his citizens may be good men, what education is 
necessary to that purpose, and what is the ^ultimate 
object of the best spent life;" and again, " Xo one 
can doubt that the legislator ought] greatly to interest 

* Ethics B. 2. C. 1. 



178 * ARISTOTLE 

himself in the care of youth; for where it is neg- 
lected, it is hurtful to the city." " Education should 
be a common care, and not that of each individual, as 
it now is, when every one takes care of his own chil- 
dren separately, and each parent in private teaches 
them as he pleases; but the training of what belongs 
to all ought to be in common. Besides, no one ought 
to think that any citizen belongs to him in particular, 
but to the state in general; for each one is a part of 
the state, and it is the natural duty of each part to 
regard the good of the whole. It is evident then that 
laws should be laid down concerning education, and 
that it should be public.^ ^^ 

He thus agrees substantially with Plato, though 
without explicitly declaring that education should be 
made compulsory. It is evident however from the 
entire tenor of the passage quoted, that Aristotle had 
no idea of leaving a matter which he deemed so im- 
portant, to the carelessness of parents or to the caprice 
of children. He logically implies compulsion without 
expressly stating it. 

Aristotle recognizes three factors of character in 
man, (1) nature, i. e., innate capability; (2) custom or 
habit; and (3) reason. The experienced tutor and ob- 
servant parent thus directs attention to the funda- 
mental differences in tastes and aptitudes that exist 
amongst men; he recommends early habituation to 
right things, since, "as to some dispositions, it avails 
not to be born with them, since custom makes great 
alterations, for there are some things in nature capa- 

* Politics B. 8. C. 1. 



THREE FACTORS OF CHARACTER 17^ 

ble of alteration either way, and which are fixed by 
custom either for the better or for the worse;" and 
he therefore demands such a training of the immature 
intelligence, that when the child attains to full self- 
consciousness, his reason and his feelings may assent 
to what habit has made easy. Now of these three 
factors, custom and reason are shaped by education; 
and " these ought always to conspire in the most entire 
harmony with each other; for it may happen that 
reason may miss the best end proposed, and yet be 
corrected by custom." 

Finally he recognizes an order of early development, 
first the body and the feelings, and next the intelli- 
gence ; and he declares that the body and the feelings 
need the earliest training and habituation, the body 
for the sake of the soul as a whole, and the feelings 
for the sake of the intelligence. - 

That this, which is [probably the first formal pro- 
posal for progressive education, was not a mere casual 
idea, thrown out with no distinct perception of all its 
consequences, Aristotle clearly shows by conforming to 
it the entire treatment of the subject of education, — 
discussing first the early care for the body and its 
proper training by gentle and pleasurable exercises; 
next laying stress on early associations, impressions, 
and habits, — matters which concern the due regulation 
of the feelings and the lower intelligence; and finally 
considering the means which are suitable for develop- 
ing reason and those parts of the emotional nature 
which stand in close relations with reason. 

Aristotle states more clearly and sharply than either 
Socrates or Plato an opinion which these philosophers 



180 ARISTOTLE 

doubtless shared, as to the aim which should be had 
in view in the education of the young. They are in- 
deed, he thinks, to be inured to exertion aud trained 
for war, they are to be taught things necessary and 
useful; but labor and war, necessity and utility, are 
after all not the ends themselves, but only the means 
for the attainment of ends higher than they can be. 

These ultimate ends are the ability to enjoy the 
blessings of peace and the disposition to make a digni- 
fied use of leisure, and to lead a pure and noble life. 
And he sharply criticises the Grecian states, especially 
Sparta, because " in their laws and education, they 
have not framed their polity with a view to the best 
ends nor to every virtue, but have meanly cared for 
those which are useful and productive of gain," In 
another place, he thus defines what is to be esteemed 
mean: " Every work and every art and every discipline 
as well, which renders the body, the mind, or the un- 
derstanding of freemen unfit for the habit and prac- 
tice of virtue;" and in this he includes "all those 
employments which are exercised for gain, because they 
take off from the leisure of mind and render it sordid."* 

It is evident therefore that the Athenian philosopher 
goes farther than the most ardent modern contemners 
of "bread and butter sciences", and that he would 
exclude from his curriculum as mean a large portion 
of the studies pursued in modern universities, because 
they look more or less directly to success in some gain- 
ful employment. In this he was doubtless in accord 
with the prevailing seutiment of his age, to which 

* Politics, ,B.VLi. C.14. H.viii. C.2 



THE THEORY OF UTILITY 



181 



seemingly the most telling accusation against the 
Sophists was that they prostituted their learning to the 
purposes of gain. Not the least interesting thing 
about the paragraphs from which the above extracts 
are taken, is the evidence which they seem to afford 
that at Athens educational questions were vigorously 
discussed, and that the theory of utility had its par- 
tisans, as well as that of culture. 

Having now observed Aristotle's views as to the 
general character of education, the source whence it 
should originate, and the end to which it should be 
directed, let us examine the scheme that he proposes 
for the attainment of his purposes, viz., a perfect 
body, fitted to endure all the hardships of life whilst 
showing itself the capable instrument of the soul for 
all the occasions of peace; and a soul so endowed with 
all virtuous and gracious habits, and so developed in 
all its capabilities, as to meet with equanimity all the 
perils of war, and to enjoy with dignity the pleasures 
of leisure and repose. 

For bodily perfection he would provide by the care- 
ful regulation of marriages, by the destruction through 
exposure of imperfect or unpromising infants, by care 
for diet and for cleanliness, by inuring children early 
to endure cold, by freedom of movement and playful 
activity, by avoiding any prescribed mental work till 
the child is seven years old, and by the less arduous 
gymnastic exercises. 

Whilst admitting the usefulness of gymnastics, he 
yet judiciously enters an earnest protest against too 
early severe training as likely to entail weakness in 
manhood, alleging that it is very rare that persons gain 



182 ARISTOTLE 

victories in the Olympian games " both when boys and 
men, because the necessary exercises which they went 
through when young deprived them of their strength." 
He protests also against the more violent of exercises 
at any time, as better adapted to develop ferocity than 
courage; for "it is not," he says, "a wolf nor any 
other wild beast that will brave any noble danger, but 
rather a good man." Moreover he calls attention to 
the impossibility of combining great mental with great 
physical exertion, " the labor of the body prevent- 
ing the progress of the mind, and that of the mind, 
the development of the body;" and hence he proposes 
that the severer gymnastic training with its regular 
diet, be deferred till the mental training is well ad- 
vanced, apparently at the age of seventeen.* 

In early education of the soul, Aristotle, like Plato, 
lays much stress on caring for the associations that chil- 
dren form and for the impressions which, early made 
upon their plastic mind^s, are apt to prove indelible. 
Hence they are to be carefully selected; they are not 
to be permitted to witness comedies, nor to see or hear 
any vulgar or indecent thing; and besides, he goes be- 
yond Plato in advising that their plays should be so 
directed as to be mainly " imitations of what they are 
afterwards to do seriously", and that their small dis- 
putes and squabbles should be unchecked^ as " con- 
tributing to increase their growth " by the agitation of 
the spirits which they occasion. 

In the last recommendation, the philosopher seems 
to have been so intent on a possible physical benefit as 
to overlook the probability of a serious moral injury. 

* Politics. B. Vni. C. 4. 



THE FUJs^CTTON OF MUSIC 183 

Until the child is seven years of age, he is to be kept 
at home, but the last two years of this time Aristotle 
recommends that he be permitted to be present at les- 
sons, to observe and catch the spirit of the instruc- 
tion, and to gain some possible desire of doing what 
he sees'- older boys do, — a recommendation which 
seems sagaciously based on the well-known inclination 
of children to aspire after what they see their elders 
able to do.* 

From the age of seven to twenty-one he proposes to 
divide into two periods, those of boyhood and of 
youth, yet without indicating any division line, nor 
does he designate the employments that he would con- 
sider suitable for each period. 

Aside from gymnastics, the means of education that 
he proposes are reading, painting or design, and mu^ic. 
Of reading he speaks only as a thing very useful in 
itself and very necessary as the means of acquiring 
other needful knowledge; and of painting he remarks 
merely its use in enabling a man to judge more accur- 
ately of the products of the fine arts, and of the 
beauties of the human form; but on music, as being 
noble and liberal in its influence, and as a source of 
elevated and rational enjoyment in hours of leisure, 
he bestows a large share of attention, — discussing the 
nature and effects of the various harmonies, and con- 
sidering for what reasons children should be taught to 
sing and play upon some instrument, and even what 
instrument is best. 

He starts the question whether as a part of educa- 
tion its office is " to instruct, to amuse, or to employ 



tlbid, B. VII. CI'; 



184 ARISTOTLE 

leisure", and answers that it does all three. It in- 
structs, because, being an expression of feelings and 
an imitation of manners, it rouses the soul to sympa- 
thize with and imitate the feelings and manners that 
are expressed, for which cause also it is expedient that 
great care should be exercised in its selection. " The 
same," he adds, " holds true with respect to rhythms; 
some fix the disposition, others occasiun a change in 
it; some act more violently, others more liberally. 
From what has been said it is evident what an influ- 
ence music has over the dispositions of the mind, and 
how variously it can affect it; and if it can do this, it 
is most certainly that in which youth ought to be 
instructed." 

Youth also need amusement, and " music which has 
the power to purify the soul, affords them a harmless 
pleasure" whilst they learn to practise it; but always 
as those who would become good citizens rather than 
great experts, able rather to judge it correctly than to 
practise it in a superior manner. Finally he says it is 
an agreeable relaxation from labor, and "a medicine 
for the uneasiness that arises therefrom "; and it may 
hence atford an honorable employment of leisure; yet 
"the learning of it should never prevent the business 
of riper years, nor render the body ignoble and unfit 
for the business of war or the state." 

His final word is this, "These then are to be laid 
down, as it were, the three boundaries of education, 
namely Moderation, Possibility, and Decency." 

Such then are the views of Aristotle on education, 
and such his catalogue of the means fitted to promote 
it, a meagre one even for the time in which he wrote. 



HIS CURRICULUM 185 

Considering education solely in its political aspect, as 
a means of assuring good citizenship, it possibly should 
cause no surprise that the father of formal logic makes 
no mention of dialectics, or that the greatest inductive 
investigator of nature previous to the time of Bacon 
should omit all study of nature in the training of his 
citizens. 

But it is even more curious than in the case of 
Plato, that he should wholly overlook history, so need- 
ful for the guidance of the good citizen in those politi- 
cal affairs in which Aristotle expects him to engage. 
We are told that Aristotle had himself made a large 
collection of the political systems of various states, 
none of which, according to our modern ideas, could 
be intelligible apart from history; yet, though we 
know that as a practical instructor in the Lyceum 
which, as a school, he founded, neither his elementary 
nor his higher course of instruction had any narrow 
limitations, still history was apparently lacking to 
illuminate the Politics that he taught. 

His teaching however included habits of observation 
and study of facts, a knowledge of natural objects and 
phenomena, criticism of poetry and oratory, politics 
and philosophy, and a rigid logical discipline, none of 
which is mentioned in his scheme of citizen studies. 
. The difference between his theory and his practice 
is not wholly accounted for by any difference in the 
periods of life to which they were addressed, since his 
scheme looks for its completion at the age of twenty- 
one. Possibly the discrepancy would disappear could 
we recover a work on education which he is said to 
have written. 



186 ARISTOTLE 

The great merit of Aristotle is that he saw and 
clearly stated that education should aim to develop 
fully and in due order all the powers of the child, 
physical, moral, and intellectual; — the, body to be 
trained but not to excess; the feeling to be habituated 
to all virtuous dispositions and to complete self-con- 
trol ; and the intellect to be developed, but not for 
mercenary ends, — regarding, in his own apt words, 
*' moderation, possibility, and decency ". 

Dr. Dittes also calls attention^ to the importance in 
educational history of Aristotle's method of investiga- 
tion and instruction. Like that of Socrates, it was 
inductive, proceeding from exact examination of the 
subject-matter, whatever its nature, and avoiding all 
arbitrary hypotheses and fanciful explanations, that he 
might reach the realities of things. Thus he advanced 
the knowledge of nature, established logic on a firm 
basis, and did much that was of value for moral and 
political philosophy. 

USEPUL REFEREN'CE FOR STUDEXTS 

Aristotle. — Politics, Books 7tli and Sth. Ethics, Books 1, 2 
and lO: 

Davidson. — Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideals, 
Book 3d. 

*Schule der Padagogik. P:irt 4th, p. 68. 



CHAPTER XIV 

KOMAN EDUCATION — STATIC PERIOD 

The history of Roman education has for us a 
peculiar interest, because into Rome, from its world- 
wide dominion, were ultimately gathered the various 
streams of culture flowing from Greece, from Egypt, 
and from the Orient; and from Rome, this intellectual 
treasure has descended to us marked with the special 
stamp of the Roman character. 

The Latin race differs widely in genius from those 
races that we have thus far considered; — not more 
from the unprogressive Chinese, the passive and intro- 
■spective Hindoos and Buddhists, and the Egyptians 
with their other-worldliness, than from the roving, 
trading, faithless Phoenicians, and from the imagina- 
tive, speculative, pleasure-loving Athenians. In some 
•of its traits, it has analogies with the war-like Spartans, 
with the conquering countrymen of Cyrus and Darius, 
and with the constructive and administrative Egyp- 
tians; but these analogies are accompanied and modi- 
fied by differences which fitted it for a peculiar, wide- 
reaching, and combining infiuence on the course of 
history. By reason of its masterful characteristics, 
the effects which it wrought on the current of historic 
development were universal in their extent, -and to a 
great degree permanent in their duration; while the 
influence of other races has been at best local and 

(187) 



188 ROME 

restricted, and has, in most cases, been perpetuated 
only by mingling with the powerful life-current of 
this imperial race. 

The genius of the Roman nationality was marked- 
ly practical rather than ideal, utilitarian rather than 
speculative, active and persistent rather than impres- 
sible. It was little accessible to aesthetic influences; 
too haughty for the airy and sportive, — its very amuse- 
ments being ponderous and serious when not merciless ; 
stern and somewhat hard-hearted, yet exhibiting a 
keen sense of justice, observant of pledges and treaties, 
and averse from treachery and deceit. No race was 
ever more tenacious of purpose. This tenacity is well 
exemplified by its maxim never to end a war save as 
victors. 

While lacking in taste and ability for speculation, 
it was preeminent in active and executive force, and 
was supremely egoistic in that larger sense which 
transforms self -valuation into valuation of the state; 
the proudest boast of a Roman was that he was a citi- 
zen of Rome. Unemotional yet deeply religious, the 
nation ascribed to one of its earliest kings the organiza- 
tion of pious observances which gave to every act of 
life, and to every question of the state, its divine over- 
seer, so that the pious Roman acted, in the words of 
Milton, "as ever in his great Taskmaster's eye". 
From the combination of such traits sprang a people 
who excelled in organization and administration; who 
built up a system of jurisprudence which has been the 
admiration and the model of all succeeding ages; and 
who, by their bravery, their steadfastness, their 



TBE AIM UTILITARIAN 189 

patriotism, and their subordination to lawful author- 
ity, became conquerors of the world. 

The weak point in this strong character was its lack 
of ideality and spirituality. Hence so soon as the 
strain of the creation of a state and the conquest of 
all foes was relaxed, we see a tending to degeneration, 
to which no effective counteraction was offered by an 
education, directed always, not to ideal, but solely to 
utilitarian ends. 

For the educational aim of Kome, in all periods of 
her history, was wholly utilitarian, — looking not to a 
harmoniously developed personality but to a well- 
trained soldiery, and to citizens skilled in the arts 
needful for the state; and seeing the highest purpose 
of culture, not in an ideal manhood, but in citizens 
brave and just, law-abiding and full of active energy; 
and Rome never became conscious that the higher aim 
would not only include all those lesser objects for 
which she strove, but would free her from those dangers 
to which finally she succumbed. 

In Rome indeed, education for the state reached a 
supreme development, having its centre and its ideal 
in the state, and no centre in the subjective and spir- 
itual nature of man. Hence, when with the attain- 
ment of universal dominion and the influx of a Greek 
culture alien to all their habits, the tension of patriotic 
effort was relaxed, and a period suited to peaceful reflec- 
tion came, the results of the lack of an ideal aim in 
individual development for the dignity of the individ- 
ual life became at once apparent. 

The Roman, when free to reflect, had no worthy 
object to fill his thoughts and life. His egoism, here- 



190 ROME 

tofore impersonal, was now turned into channels of 
purely private and sordid interests, and the struggle 
of such interests against patriotic impulses began. 
Eeligion, which, though an active factor in the state, 
had never been a vigorous sentiment, dwindled to 
mere empty formalities at which the better-instructed 
sneered ; and morality, thus bereft of its firmest sup- 
port, was presently overwhelmed by a tide of unblush- 
ing wantonness and unbridled sensuality. 

The vast riches that flowed from the conquered 
provinces into a state that had been founded on sim- 
plicity of life, no doubt aggravated these evils, but 
they did not generate them. They furnished the in- 
struments for greed and license, but not the disposi- 
tions thereto. These dispositions were latent in the 
inbred nature of the race, and needed only opportun- 
ity to burst forth into excesses which first tarnished 
and then effaced the ancient glories of the Eoman 
name. 

The early and the later history of Eome reveals to 
us the best and the worst fruits of mere utilitarian 
ideals of life, perpetuated by a correspondent educa- 
tion which was relieved by no high aims. 

The educational history of Home, viewed in its 
broadest aspects, may, I think, be separated into two 
periods that are sufficiently well-marked to be useful 
for my purpose, which is within a brief compass to 
gain all practicable distinctness of conception in regard 
to a history which extended over more than twelve 
hundred years, and which naturally, during that long 
period, exhibited striking changes and modifications. 

The earlier period we may consider as extending 



TWO PERIODS 191 

approximately from the founding of the city to about 
200 B. C, a duration of some five and a half cen- 
turies; and since, duriag this period, the means and 
method of education exhibited only those few and 
slightly-marked changes which were needed to adapt 
them to a state whose growth was along fixed lines, we 
may without impropriety term it the Static period. 

The later period, or that of the ^ew Education, 
extends from 200 B. C. to the downfall of Rome; and 
since, under an impulse received from Greek culture, 
it was marked by a great extension of subjects of 
study, by the introduction of different and more for- 
mal methods of instruction, and by a wide-reaching 
organization and gradation of educational establish- 
ments, it may properly be called the Dynamic period. 

As has already been said, the aim of education dur- 
ing both of these periods was a practical one, ruled 
wholly by the idea of the usable and profitable; yet 
during the first period, the utilitarian idea was inspired 
by a lofty patriotic purpose, that of the elevation and 
aggrandizement of the state; whilst in the second 
period, this ennobling modification of utilitarianism 
gradually died out and was replaced by an ignoble 
self-seeking. 

During the first period, to which we will first confine 
our attention, the training of the Romans bore some 
external resemblance to that of Sparta, to which it has 
sometimes been likened. The points of contrast were, 
however quiet as numerous and vital as those of re- 
semblance. 

In both, the training of boys was largely physical, 
looking to military efficiency; yet in Rome we have 



192 ROME, STATIC PERIOD 

reason to believe that an intellectual element entered 
always much more largely into this training than in 
Sparta, and gradually came to play a quite obvious 
part. 

The two peoples laid a like emphasis on patriotism 
and on obedience to elders and superiors; but in Eome 
both these virtues had their deepest roots in family ties 
which, as we have seen, were disregarded in Sparta. 

Here the resemblance of the two peoples ends. In 
Sparta boys were isolated from the family, and were 
educated solely by the state for the state; whilst in 
"Rome, during the entire period, education had a 
dominantly domestic character, being conducted by 
the mothers as well as the fathers, within the sacred 
precincts of the home. 

Again, the Spartans despised agriculture and re- 
mitted its duties to dependents and slaves; on the con- 
trary, the taste for rural pursuits, which the earlier 
Romans displayed, strongly differentiated their mode 
of life from that of the Spartans, and introduc-ed a 
profound modification into the education received by 
the young, — for who would liken the effects on youth- 
ful character of the rigid restrictive Spartan syssitia 
to the free activity of a Roman boy in a country home ? 
As is well known, some of the most pleasing legends 
of early Rome are connected with their taste for agri- 
culture. 

It may also be noted that the class distinctions at 
Rome bore but the most superficial resemblance to 
those of Sparta. The Roman plebs were no Perioeci, 
tame to submit to the insults and encroachments of 
the patricians; and still less were they Helots, inviting 



COMPARED WITH SPARTA 193 

by their humility the inhuman custom of the crypteia, 
which gave a tone of peculiar savagery to a portion of 
the training of Spartan youth ; to the patrician haughti- 
ness, they opposed a pride equally unyielding; and the 
struggles of the two classes, ending in the establish- 
ment of a modus vivendi equally advantageous to both 
and to the state, was wholly unlike anything that oc- 
curred in Sparta. 

Finally, the Eoman instinct for organization, for 
construction, and for administration, has little analogy 
with anything in the Spartan character; yet it is obvi- 
ous how profound an influence the early development 
of this instinct must necessarily have exerted on the 
education of the young, and how different a character 
it must have given it from that of Sparta. 

How early was the manifestation of this peculiar 
Roman capability, with its consequent effects on youth- 
ful education, is shown by the fact that their legends 
ascribe to their earliest kings all the general features 
of their state organization; — to Eomulus, the division 
into classes, order, and tribes, the institution of the 
senate, the adoption of the insignia of authority, in 
short the broader features of Roman institutions, 
social, political, and military; to Xuma, the organiza- 
tion of religious observances, with their offices, their 
rites, and their duties, and the divine sanction which 
they gave to the inviolability of property in land; to 
Ancus Martins the germs of what later was developed 
into international law; and to Servius Tullius, the 
division into centuries based on relative wealth, and its 
correlation of duties and burdens with privileges, so 
analogous to the timocracy which Solon, at well-nigh 
the same time strove to introduce at Athens. 



194 KOME, STATIC PERIOD 

This comparison of Roman with Spartan character, 
circumstances, and early training, will serve to give 
some general notion of the nature of Roman educa- 
tion, during what we have termed the Static period. 
We may now proceed to examine a little more in detail 
its means and method, and any germs of organization 
that it may present. 

It is not at all probable that at the beginning of this 
period the education of even the most favored youth 
was to any considerable extent, if at all, in letters. 
K. Schmidt says (Gesch. i.757), on I know not what 
authority, that at the foundation of their common- 
wealth the Romans had the art of writing as an inheri- 
tance of an earlier Latin civilization; and that they 
added to this divination, surveying, and, in general 
the branches of knowledge which pertain to religion 
and agriculture. 

There is no doubt however that the literary element 
gradually attained an increasing importance. A re- 
mark in Xiebuhr (History of Rome, vol. 1, c. 7) would 
seem to make it quite as probable that the Romans 
acquired letters from the Etruscans, from whom their 
notation of numbers, and their divination seem cer- 
tainly to have been derived. The early legends justify 
the idea that the art of writing was at least early 
gained, and warrant us in inferring that a people who 
had such skill in organization and such apprehension 
of what characterizes civilized life as is attributed to 
them, could hardly have lacked the elements of writ- 
ten language. 

To be sure, we have no knowledge of any annals or 
literature that could have demanded any considerable 



CURRICULUM 195 

use of writing,* save the religious songs and the lays 
of heroes; and these, as is well-known, are easily pre- 
served by memory and transmitted orally, exerting by 
this means a most valuable educative influence on 
the youth of all early peoples. Such poetic composi- 
tions, whether transmitted orally or by writing, we 
may be sure were influential in inculcating in the 
Roman youth those virtues which were most highly 
valued, such as purity, modesty, and simplicity of life, 
piety towards the divine powers, good faith towards 
enemies as well as friends, obedience to parents and 
superiors, and patriotic devotion to the state. 

There is no reason to doubt that a knowledge of the 
state, its institutions, and its laws, made an important 
part of the instruction of the boys; and from 450 B. 
C, we know, from Cicero as well as others, that the 
laws of the XII tables were committed to memory by 
at least all well-born boys, and that they probably 
formed a reading book of all who learned to read. 
Important knowledge of their country's history was 
instilled into the young by the heroic songs and by 
narrations of the deeds of eminent men. These were 
a feature of the social gatherings, in which children 
shared in the company of their parents, and doubtless 
like the children of the present day listened with eager 
ears to everything which took the form of a story. 

During this entire period, there was a careful train- 
ing of girls in domestic duties and economy, and of 
the boys in agriculture and duties of public life, in- 
cluding the ability to express their opinions forcibly on 

* The fact that our knowledge of early Roman history depends on not 
very trustworthy legends, shows how little use was made of writing. 



196 KOME, STATIC PERIOD 

public occasions. This last was the fruitful germ of 
that forensic eloquence for which the Romans became 
so distinguished. When we add to all this, that in 
the later ages of this period, some exposition of the 
native poets and annalists was joined to whatever of 
necessary reading and writing had before been taught, 
and that doubtless the art of reckoning with their 
clumsy notation, an art so needful for a thoroughly 
practical people, entered into the instruction of the 
young, — we shall have given a fair catalogue of the 
subjects of study which contributed to the intellectual 
and moral education of Roman youth during the period 
that we are considering. 

For physical education, a gymnastic training like 
that of the Greeks, which aimed at bodily beauty and 
perfection, never found general favor at Rome in either 
period of its history, much less in the earlier. 
Thoroughly utilitarian in all their aims, their object 
in physical training was to confirm health and strength 
and to insure endurance of hardships, and capability 
in what concerned warlike pursuits. For anything 
beyond this, they had neither thought nor care. The 
means for this purpose, aside from the sportive exer- 
tions of youth, were agricultural labors, swimming, 
and material exercises, such as riding, hurling missile 
weapons, hunting, and the practice of military evolu- 
tions. At the close of this period, Plutarch represents 
Cato the Censor as himself training his son in the old 
Roman fashion, and according to the ancient Roman 
curriculum of physical education, viz., to ride, to box, 
to endure heat and cold, to hurl the javelin, and to 
fight hand to hand with the sword. So far from 



PAREI^TS THE TEACHERS 197 

deeming it a glory to bear oif the palm in gymnastic 
encounters, as did the Greeks, these haughty burghers 
disdained to engage personally in such competitions, 
but sat in calm superiority as spectators of contests of 
strength and dexterity performed for their amusement 
by slaves or dependents. 

As has already been said, the form of education dur- 
ing this period was chiefly domestic. Children were 
taught desirable things at home, and parents, especially 
mothers who during all the early ages of Rome held a 
position of peculiar honor and influence, were their 
teachers. Thus Plutarch tells us that Cato took 
upon himself the office of schoolmaster to his son, 
though he had a slave who was a good grammarian and 
taught several other children. But he tells us " he did 
not choose that his son should be reprimanded by a 
slave, or pulled by the ears if he happened to be slow 
in his learning, nor that he should be indebted to so 
mean a person for his education. He was therefore 
himself his preceptor in grammar, in law, and in the 
necessary exercises." 

We may see from this passage, 1st, an exemplification 
of the old Roman mode of domestic education in the 
person of one of its last representatives; 2d, that this 
custom was dying out 200 B. C, and the diity of edu- 
cating children was passing into the hands of slave 
teachers, so that a man bought a schoolmaster as he 
might a swine-herd; and 3d, the haughty feeling that 
underlay the ancient custom, that they would not 
have their children indebted for so great a benefit as 
education to any one less dear than parents. By par- 
ents then chiefly they were trained to the learning, the 



198 ROME, STATIC PERIOD 

virtues, and the capabilities that were deemed essen- 
tial to Roman citizens. 

The teaching was, in all probability, largely oppor- 
tune, observational and through experience ; — through 
precepts reduced as far as possible to uniform practice; 
through care for associates and for good practical ex- 
ample; through association with parents and friends 
on business or festive occasions, where we are assured 
that nothing was done or said that could mar the 
character which it was desirable that youth should 
form; by listening to the conversation of fathers and 
elders on public affairs, and watching their manage- 
ment of clients and other dependents; and finally, by 
experience of state and military affairs, under the 
guidance of the father or some eminent man. 

Schools probably began to exist as auxiliaries to the 
family in the literary part of instruction, within three 
centuries of the foundation of the state. Livy, in 
narrating the legend of Virginia, 450 B. C, says she 
was seized by the myrmidons of Appius Claudius while 
on her way to her school in the forum, attended by 
her nurse. Other mentions of schools in neighboring 
cities at nearly the same period, such as the treachery 
of the Falerian schoolmaster, 392 B. C, and the fact 
that Camillus disturbed the schools of Tusculum by 
his unexpected arrival with his army, leave little reason 
to doubt that in the opinion of Roman writers schools 
had become not uncommon long before the close of 
the static period. 

No works of a pedagogical character from this period 
have been preserved. It is said that Cato the Censor, 
who lived in the transition time from this to the next 



CATO, THE CENSOR 199 

period, wrote works which are now lost, but which 
would be fairly considered pedagogic, such as a history 
of Rome for the instruction of his son and " Precepts 
of his son ", a work that is supposed to have contained 
counsels for the improvement of boys in agriculture, in 
legal and military matters, and in oratory. 

In regard to the last, he is said to have made the 
requisites of the orator, sound understanding and up- 
rightness of life, for only a noble man can, in his 
opinion, be a good orator. This maxim of his for the 
orator has been preseived, " Rem tene, verba sequen- 
tui\^^ that is, get a firm grip on your matter, the words 
will come fast enough. 

He wrote also a poem on morals of which fragments 
have been preserved in other words. The fragment 
here to be quoted can but cause us to regret that the 
entire work has not been preserved: " Human life is 
like iron; if it is used it is gradually rubbed away, but 
if neglected it is consumed by rust; just so we see 
that men are worn out by use; but if they employ 
themselves in nothing, inactivity and idleness bring 
them more harm than labor." A collection of Cato's 
sayings was long current in later Roman school litera- 
ture, and of these, several are preserved in Plutarch. 
A collection bearing his name was also used and mem- 
orized in the schools of the Middle Ages. 

The consideration of the simple and direct means 
and methods which the Romans made use of during 
this epoch to educate their young for solely utilitarian 
ends, has a greater interest because the best and most 
brilliant fruits of this kind of training were then pro- 
duced. The special genius of the race and the cir- 



200 ROME, STATIC PERIOD 

cumstances of the times cooperated favorably with 
practical and utilitarian views to produce a people 
moral and religious without sentiment; reverent to 
parents and elders; hard and stern indeed, yet just 
and loyal to pledges; full of executive ability, skilful 
in organization and legislation; brave and tenacious in 
war, in peace energetic and sagacious in promoting 
public interests, — a people, in short, in whom a 
haughty egoism, softened by no ideal aims, had been 
by force of training turned into unselfish channels^and 
transfigured into patriotism. The history of Rome, 
during this its static period, doubtless presents us with 
the best results that may be looked for from a purely 
utilitarian education. 



CHAPTER XV 

ROMAN EDUCATIOJ^ — DYI^TAMIC PERIOD 

It will not be expected that the transition from the 
old type of education to the new should be other than 
gradual, and accomplished by slow and almost imper- 
ceptible degrees. In point of fact, no dividing line 
can be drawn even approximately between them. 

Towards the close of the 3d century B. C, we may 
perceive the beginning of Grecian influence upon 
Roman manners and education. The Greek language 
begins to come into use, and this use presently grows 
into a fashion. The Greek literature makes for itself 
at first a small and then a larger circle of admirers. 
Greek teachers and philosophers come to Rome, where 
they meet at first a varying reception, are greeted by 
the young who are fond of novelty, are looked upon 
with suspicion by the elders, and are more than once 
driven out of the country by decrees of the Senate, but 
finally gain a firm foothold and growing favor.* 

With them come Grecian subjects like rhetoric and 
philosophy which were unknown to the old Roman 
education; and these are presently recognized as a 
welcome enrichment of a scheme of studies hitherto 
very meager. And thus, under Grecian influence, the 
old simple form of education was gradually superseded 
by the New Education, — an education however which 

* LiddelL— History of Rome, c 44. 
(201) 



202 EOME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

was rather fashioned on Athenian models than inspired 
by Athenian ideas. 

The progress of this change receives a curious illus- 
tration in the person of Cato the Censor, who has 
been called the last of the Romans. He struggled 
with all the energy of his nature against these innova- 
tions; as we have already seen, he personally trained 
"up his own son in the Roman discipline ; twice by his 
influence the philosophers and rhetoricians were ban- 
ished from Rome; and yet, in his old age, he learned 
Greek, and " extended the love which he had always 
shown for Roman literature to that of Greece. The 
language of Homer and Demosthenes could boast no 
more signal triumph than that it conquered the stub- 
born pride of Cato."* When Cato, and Old Rome in 
his person, had so far yielded to the fascinations of 
Greece — about 160 B. C. — we may fairly think that 
the static period in Roman education was ended, and 
that the Dynamic era, the era of change was begun. 

In this era as in the earlier no lofty aim is to be 
looked for, no conception of the worth of a completely 
developed manhood. As the purpose of education in 
the beginning was practical and utilitarian, such it 
continued to be to the end. Education enlarged its 
means by importations from Greece, but it did not 
change the spirit in which it employed means. It 
changed its character, relating the work of instruction 
from the family, the forum, and the camp, to organized 
schools, but it did not change the aims for which it 
strove. It merely looked to another and less elevated 
phase of utility in the promotion of personal ends, 

*Lidclen.— History of Rome C.44. 



CHANGE OF MEANS BUT NOT OF END 203 

of fame or fortune, through practical or oratorical 
skill; or, in the more estimable cases, it strove to 
check the progressive degeneration of manners and 
spirit, by an increase of learning, by an enlargement 
of the learned classes, and by substituting philosophy 
in the place of the dead ancient religious belief. 

Rome learned to her cost during this period, that in 
striving for mere utility, we may lose the thing which 
is most really useful, — the spirit to use all acquire- 
ments aright; and that wide learning without ideal 
aim may prove but a barren acquisition, void of real 
culture and empty of all that makes learning valuable, 
since "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." 

In the old Roman scheme of education, two of the 
most weighty and largely used means of training the 
young to desirable characters and capabilities had little 
to do with formal studies. These were : 1st, the teach- 
ing by example, — the example of high-minded, ener- 
getic, and patriotic fathers, of frugal, chaste, and pious 
mothers ; the sympathetic influence of carefully chosen 
attendants and companions; the examples of heroic 
personages of earlier days presented to the young in 
the attractive form of narrations and heroic songs; 
and finally the pervasive influence of public sentiment, 
the example of patriotic fellow citizens intent upon 
the welfare and aggrandizement of their common 
country; and 2d, the teaching by observation and do- 
ing, through which both sexes learned social and relig- 
ious, and boys political and military duties. 

Through these two means, by dint of doing, the 
lessons of experience and example, enforced no doubt 
by fitting^Jprecept, were transmitted into habits, and 



204 ROME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

wrought into the fabric of settled character. Of 
these, under the new order of things, the always pow- 
erful influence of example gradually became an instru- 
ment of evil rather than of good, by reason of the 
growing corruption of morals which is mentioned by 
all historians and deplored by their own authors. 
Thus Quintilian says : " The unfortunate children learn 
vices before they know that they are vices, and hence, 
rendered effeminate and luxurious, they do not imbibe 
immorality from schools, but carry it themselves into 
schools." 

The learning by observation succeeded by practice, 
also gradually sunk into disuse, and was replaced by 
the formal study of subjects from books or dictation. 
These subjects, during the first century of our era, 
began to take the form which for fifteen centuries they 
retained, of the encyclopedic Trivium and Qaadrivi- 
um.* The former included grammar, rhetoric, and 
dialectics, or what might be called the cycle of formal 
literary studies; whilst the scientific branches, arith- 
metic, geometry, astronomy, and music, constituted 
the Quadrivium. Seneca, in the first century A. D., 
names all these as liberal studies save rhetoric and 
dialectics, which he doubtless considered as parts of 
grammar, in the wide comprehension which that term 
then had. Even earlier, Varro mentions them all as 
liberal, including two others which were later set aside 
as purely professional. 

All these subjects were considered and taught, not 
as speculative matters which might be investigated and 

* On the Evolution of the Trivium and Quadrivium, see a learned article 
in the Educational Review tor December, 1891. 



TRIVIUM AJ^D QUADRIVIUM 205 

advanced, but as ascertained and practical bodies of 
facts which were to be learned and used. Most of 
them also included subject matters which are now 
assigned to departments of their own. Thus astrono- 
my included whatever of physics was known; geometry 
was not sharply separated from geography ; dialectics, 
which is properly the science of formal thought, com- 
prehended, besides logic, also ethics and metaphysics, on 
"which formal thought was then most employed; and 
rhetoric, the formal science of effective expression, 
had no definite dividing lines from politics and philos- 
ophy. Of all these sciences however, grammar was 
the least differentiated, or as Quintilian says of it, " It 
carries much more beneath the surface than it shows 
on its front;" for, besides the formal science of express- 
ing ideas correctly, whether in the vernacular Latin, 
or in Greek, which was then largely studied, it in- 
cluded the study, criticism, and expression of poetic 
and prose literature, whatever of history and mythol- 
ogy was studied, and, according to Quintilian's idea, 
music also, " since the grammarian has to speak of 
metre and rhythm." Indeed, this author seems in- 
clined to include within the scope of grammar sub- 
jects like astronomy and philosophy, since they might 
be needed to understand the allusions of the poets. 

This indefiniteness in the comprehension of terms now 
used with much precision needs to be carefully borne 
in mind in studying the educational history, as well 
of the Middle Ages as of Rome during this period; 
and nowhere is greater care needful than in regard to 
the wide extent of the term grammar. In breadth of 



206 ROME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

comprehension, indeed, it has a curious analogy with 
the Greek term music. 

It seems expedient in this place to give a brief ac- 
count of the subjects that during this period were un- 
dertaken in the schools, and of some of the better 
known text-books in which they were pursued. 

What we now know under the name grammar, as we 
have already seen, was unknown in the classic ages of 
Greece. Even Aristotle distinguished only three parts 
of speech, nouns, verbs, and conjunctions. Later the 
stoics made farther analysis of language, and the 
"Alexandrian scholars classified and named the phe- 
nomena of language as tanguage. " So far as is known, 
Dionysius Thrax, an Alexandrian scholar, about 90 B. 
C, wrote the first formal grammar, to aid his Koman 
pupils to learn Greek. Quintilian, in some chapters of 
the 1st Book of the Institutes, written near the close of 
the first century, A. D., shows that grammar had at that 
time taken nearly its present form; orthography was 
strongly emphasized, as was natural in a book on the 
training of the orator; etymology had taken complete 
form, with eight classes of words, inflection duly 
treated, and the importance of observing derivation 
impressed; syntax was also treated somewhat, under 
the title of solecism, and the authority of good speak- 
ers and writers in giving currency to language, was 
recognized; but he evidently recognizes no definite 
separation between syntax and what we would term 
rhetoric, and in this he is without justification. 

Elius Donatus, in the 4th century, wrote a work on 
the eight parts of speech and on solecisms and barbar- 
isms in language, which was long used in Europe, and 



GEAMMAR 207 

forms the groundwork of the elementary treatises on 
Latin grammar. Later, probably about the beginning 
of the 6th century, Priscian wrote a treatise on gram- 
mar in eighteen books, illustrated by many quotations 
from Greek and Latin authors, some of whom are 
known only by his quotations; and an epitome of this 
work in the 9th century by Rabanus Maurus was popu- 
lar in the Middle Ages, insomuch that to make blunders 
in point of grammar was called " breaking the head of 
Priscian ". These two, the most famous grammarians 
in the Middle Ages, and still extant, were the only 
ones who had a connection even remote with Rome dur- 
ing the period we are considering. 

Of the branches included under the general term 
grammar, it may be said that during this epoch Greek 
was widely taught even in the higher elementary 
schools, chiefly by its use, and that Quintilian sug- 
gests that its school study should be begun a little 
earlier than that of the vernacular; that the chief 
works of Greek and Roman poets and orators received 
a large share of attention, an example that later ages 
have been slow to follow, especially as regards vernacu- 
lar literature; and that music, if it be included here, 
received little school attention, being remitted to in- 
dividual efforts. 

Of history as one of the subsidiaries of grammar it 
is fitting to speak less cursorily. The Romans were 
at all periods more interested in history than were the 
Greeks. Hence during this period several hand-books 
of history were prepared for school use, which were 
current for many centuries, and copies of which, as 



208 ROME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

well as of the grammars that have been mentioned, 
are still to be found in all considerable libraries. 

The most famous of these were those of Florus, 2d 
century, A. D., and of Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, 
4th century, A. D. That of Florus, entitled " Epitome 
Rerum Romanarum''\ treats in four Books divided into 
81 chapters of the period from the origin of Rome to 
the universal peace under Augustus. Without the 
notes with which commentators have overloaded it, it 
would fill not more than a hundred 12mo pages. The 
^^ Breviarum Historia Romanae^^ of Eutropius in ten 
books would occupy but little more space than the 
preceding, and yet its survey extends from the origin 
of the city to the death of Jovianus, 364 A. D. 
These epitomes, and lives of distinguished men and of 
the Caesars by Aurelius Victor, satisfied the historic 
wants of the later imperial period and of the Middle 
Ages, at a very cheap rate. 

To make the instruction in history easier, also, the 
form of verse came to be much used; and it may be 
said that the use of verse as an aid to memory, was a 
common expedient in many kinds of study, not only 
in this period in Rome, but for many centuries after 
the downfall of the empire, and that relics of it may 
be found in some school books of quite recent times. 
There is some evidence of I know not how reliable 
character, that pictorial means were used to give liveli- 
ness to historical instruction. 

It is of interest also to know that the geographer 
Strabo advises that mythology, i. e., heroic narrations, 
should be used as an interesting introduction to his- 
toric study. He says: " In the instruction of boys we 



HISTOKY 209 

should begin with myths, with the fables of the poets. 
The reason is this, that the myth narrates something 
novel, and does not depict the common-place. This 
is precisely that which arouses the desire of knowledge, 
whilst at the same time the impulse of the wonderful 
and incomprehensible heightens the satisfaction which 
constitutes another incitement to learning." 

Some modern teachers of History are beginning 
to use the principle embodied in this advice of Strabo, 
by commencing the instruction in history with inter- 
esting biographies and narations chronologically ar- 
ranged, a method which was recommended by Dr. 
Thomas Arnold more than fifty years ago; and on 
which two German teachers, Dr. Spiess and Prof. 
Verlet, have prepared a series of lessons in history in 
three concentric courses, made up of narrations of 
important historic events, of biographies of men who 
were centres of historic interest, and of legends 'like 
those of Hercules, the Trojan war, the early Eoman 
kings, and the J^ibelungen Lied. Those in each 
course are arranged in chronological order, and those 
in each succeeding course are intended to overlap and 
widen the circle of knowledge already gained in the 
preceding courses, while necessitating its review in its 
relations to the new acquisitions. If a historic school- 
book like this be compared with the meagre detail of 
facts in Eutropius and Florus, it will be seen^^both how 
great an advance has been made in school books of 
history, and that this advance is in the line of a hint 
given near the beginning of the century of our era by 
Strabo. 



210 ROME, DYKAMIC PERIOD 

Of rhetoric and dialecties it is sufficient here to say, 
that as formal rhetoric and logic they did not differ 
very materially from the form in which they are now 
taught, constituting with geometry some of the most 
perfect products of the ancient scientific intellect; 
that in the Roman empire they constituted depart- 
ments of higher learning in special schools, which we 
shall presently consider; and that, during the Middle 
Ages, by their degeneration and perversion, they pro- 
duced that bastard offspring of the speculative intel- 
lect, the barren subtleties of Scholasticism. 

When we come to notice two of the remaining 
branches of the quadrivium, arithmetic and geometry, 
our attention is attracted to the slight taste which tne 
Romans displayed for mathematics. Their means of 
numerical notation were exceedingly clumsy, and ad- 
mitted of but a very limited development of arithme- 
tic. Hence in Rome during the period in question, 
and in all Europe during the Middle Ages, the use of 
arithmetic was of the most elementary character, for 
keeping the calendar and for very simple numerical 
calculations in business. The simple and convenient 
Arabic notation was little known in Europe prior to 
100 A. D. ; and even since that time, the simplifica- 
tion of arithmetical operations which makes this sci- 
ence at present so easy and convenient an instrument, 
has been the work of comparatively recent years. 

As for geometry, which the Greeks, startiug with 
suggestions derived from Egypt, had carried to so 
high a degree of perfection, culminating in the com- 
pilation, arrangement, and extension made by Euclid 



HISTORY 



211 




Euclid, 300/—? B. C. Archimedes, 287-211, B. C. 

in Alexandria, and by Archimedes in Syracuse, the 
Eomans and their successors for many ages contented 
themselves with the more obviously important defini- 
tions and theorems of Euclid, which they applied 
solely to practical uses, in war and the measurement 
of land. 

Quintilian indeed (Institutes B. I. c. x.) shows a 
clear apprehension of the value of geometrical demon- 
stration as a discipline for the orator, — in sharpening 
the intellect and in training to close thinking; in pro- 
moting habits of orderly arrangement and logical de- 
duction; in enabling the detection of fallacies; and in 
so demonstrating the system of the celestial bodies as 
to prove that in their movements there is " nothing 
unordained or fortuitous "; yet his recommendation 
of geometry evidently wrought no change in Eoman 
practice, which was to use truths that others had 
proven, without troubling themselves to verify the 
validity of the proof, or to extend its application by 
investigation. 

As has before been remarked, geography was includ- 



212 ROME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

ed by the "Romans under geometry as one of its phases, 
possibly from their use of the latter in land measure- 
ment. While considerably cultivated during this 
period, geography owes its advancement mainly to for- 
eign aid: 1st, in the map constructed by Egyptians 
under the patronage of Agrippa, the friend and chan- 
cellor of Augustus; 2d, in the great work of the 
Greek JStrabo, who added the results of his own CKten- 
sive travels to the observations of his predecessors in 
preparing the seventeen Books of his geography, a 
work which is still preserved; and 3d in the treatise 
of the celebrated Ptolemy on topographical and math- 
ematical geography. 

The best known work on this subject from a Roman 
source is the sketch by Pliny in his Natural History, 
to which may be added a work said to be of some 
merit, written about 45 A. D. by Pomponius Mela, 
and a few other brief treatises, some of which were 
composed in verse, while all seem to be based on the 
map of Agrippa. 

In the 3d century A. D., a Gallic orator of Autun, 
in a speech favoring the revival of schools in his 
native city, says that the youth are daily practised in 
going over all land and seas on maps which present to 
their eyes the position, size, and distance of places. 
This notice is interesting as indicating the nature of 
geographic instruction, as also that it had extended 
from Rome to the provinces. We should naturally 
expect attention to geography on the part of a world- 
conquering people. Their attainments certainly con- 
stitute the high- water mark of geographic knowedge 



geography; astronomy 213 

up to near the close of the 15th century. During this 
long period, the work of Ptolemy was the unques- 
tioned authority for whatever knowledge of geography 
was gained. 

" Astronomy received greater attention than geome- 
try in the schools during the imperial rule, — partly 
because it was indispensable for the fixing of the calen- 
dar and for chronology, and partly because during this 
period it was coming into increasing connection with 
astrology*." This, the most ancient of the sciences, 
since it had attracted the early observations of the 
Oriental peoples and the Egyptians, and had been in- 
dustriously cultivated by the Greeks from the days of 
Thales and Pythagoras, about 110 A. D., reached the 
form which it retained for nearly fourteen centuries 
in the famous work of Ptolemy. This work, known 
by its Arabian name as the Almagest, added the dis- 
coveries of Ptolemy to those of his predecessors and 
especially of Hipparchus; and, as is well-known, re- 
jecting the sagacious hypothesis of Pythagoras that 
the sun is the centre of our system, based its explana- 
tion of celestial movements on the idea that the earth 
is the fixed centre of the universe. This theory of 
Ptolemy gave the law to astronomical and astrological 
ideas, and to no small extent to religious ideas also, 
until the time of Copernicus. 

Aside from this great work, we know that the study 
of astronomy was popularized at Rome during the 
reign of Augustus by two versified treatises, one long 
known as the " Poetic Astronomy " by C. Julius 

*Schmidt-Geschichte, etc., I. p. 852. 



214 HOME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

Hyginus, a friend of Ovid, and the other, a still exist- 
ing versification by Manilius. 

This brief survey of the studies and chief text- 
books used, during this period, in the schools for gen- 
eral education, as well throughout much of the Roman 
empire as in Rome itself, has seemed expedient here 
to be made, because it not only shows the condition 
of the sciences at the time, but also indicates all and 
more than all that was attempted in any of them in 
whatever of instruction was undertaken, during the 
confusion of the Middle Ages, and up to the time of the 
great revival of learning. These branches constitute 
the celebrated Trivium and Quadrivium, which— too 
often in a very maimed and distorted form — were the 
literary means of culture for many centuries. 

It would not be proper however to close this survey 
of educational means without at least glancing at the 
arrangements for physical training. The old salutary 
physical training given in the family to fit boys for the 
duties of political and miWtary life, gradually disap- 
peared during this period. What provisions were 
made or proposed to take its place ? To this question 
a brief answer may be given; — publicly none. As a 
matter of private care and choice, athletic exercises 
such as running, riding, swimming, and ball-playing 
were practised by many of the youth on the Campus 
Martins and elsewhere. Attempts were also made and 
with some success to revive the old Greek gymnastics 
for the sake of health and strength, and these attempts 
were favored in the 2d century, A. D., by the cele- 
brated satirist Lucian and the still more famous Galen. 
Athletic associations were formed, ani flourishei for a 



PHYSICAL culture; libearies 215 

time, but they probably disappeared before the down- 
fall of the Roman Empire. 

As concerns the accessibility of literary works, it is 
interesting to note that from the reign of Aiigusrus 
booksellers had their shops in the most frequented 
parts of Rome, and that the transcribing of books 
was practised with such skill and diligence that copies 
of many books could be purchased at reasonable prices. 
Also from the beginning of the empire, public libraries 
were cared for both in Rome and in some of the chief 
provincial cities. It is reported that in Rome during 
the 4th century, as many as twenty-eight public libra- 
ries existed, and that men of culture made these libra- 
ries places of meeting for study and conversation. 
Thus it may be seen that in Rome during this period 
abundant means of culture were presented and also 
made very accessible. 

It remains to be considered in what way these means 
were used, i. e., what were the methods of instruc- 
tion, and what the organization and functions of the 
various kinds of schools, elementary, higher, and 
special, which gradually grew up, and some of which 
in later times were encouraged by the state. The first 
of these points, with some subsidiary matters which 
naturally belong with it, we will examine here, leaving 
the larger question of organization to the succeeding 
chapter. 

For the methods of instruction which were employed 
during the dynamic period of Roman education, we 
have satisfactory sources of information in contempo- 
rary authors. Chief of these is Quintilian in the 1st 
Book of his Institutes, a work of the 1st century, A. 



216 KOME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

D., to which'may be added interesting hints by Lucian 
in the^2d century, and in the 3d by Dositheos, a Greek 
teacher in Rome. These methods, though of great 
interest because some of them have been perpetuated 
nearly to our own time, and because others might 
reasonably be'] used even now, may yet be briefly 
despatched. 

Reading was taught in the elementary schools by the 
alphabetic and syllabic method, which has not yet 
entirely disappeared from some of our more backward 
schools, though our language is not so well adapted to 
its use as were the Latin and Greek. 

Qnintilian recommends that objective aids be used 
in this instruction in the form of letters cut in ivory 
which children may handle and observe. It is possi- 
ble that his advice indicates a somewhat general use 
of such means by the better teachers. He also ad- 
vises that the more difficult words and combinations of 
sounds be diligently practised until they can be ut- 
tered with certainty and ease. Thus care was to be 
exercised from the outset to insure clear and accurate 
pronunciation. 

When the elements of reading were thus mastered, 
the pupils read portions of the native poets, analyzed 
them as to form and meaning, gave the proper inflec- 
tions to the metre, and then committed them to mem- 
ory. Dositheos thus describes his own boyish work : 
'* I read my lesson, which the teacher carefully ex- 
plained to me, until I understood the persons and the 
import of the words of the author. When bid by the 
teacher, I stopped and gave place to another pupil. 
I retained the explanations in memory, and when we 



METHODS OF TEACHING: READING 217 

had taken our seats I went over by myself the instruc- 
tion as to facts, language, and metre. Returning to 
my place, when I was called upon I drew forth my 
right hand, pressed my left against my dress, and 
began to recite. I repeated the verses according to 
their measure, distinctly and with correct emphasis, 
and then I gave the paraphrase." This account is so 
artless, and yet vivid, that we seem to be assisting at a 
class exercise in reading in the 3d century. 

The teachers also read with their classes and ex- 
plained the ethical poets, doubtless as a means of moral 
instruction; and either dictated considerable passages 
from poets like Terence and Horace, or used instead 
school manuals of such extracts, analogous to modern 
reading books. 

We thus see the teaching was largely oral, and this 
too, not merely from the paucity of books, but, as 
may readily be gathered from Quintilian — from a con- 
viction that the living voice accompanied with looks, 
attitude, and gesture is needed to make a deep impres- 
sion on the minds and memories of the young. In the 
more advanced classes, prose works like those of Cicero, 
and the tragic, comic, and lyric poets were in like man- 
ner explained, with lessons on style and elementary 
grammar, and with illustrations from history and geog- 
raphy, the latter being aided by maps. 

Greek seems to have been widely taught, even in the 
better class of elementary schools. Quintilian even 
suggests that the school instruction in Greek should be 
a little earlier than that in the vernacular, a strange 
suggestion, and even more strange since the alphabets 
are unlike; later he thinks the instruction in Greek 



218 ROME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

should go hand in hand with the vernacular, and that 
it should be taught in the grammatical way. We 
gather however from Dositheos that Greek was most 
largely acquired by use and reading. 

The art of penmanship, which was especially essential 
in an age when books could be multiplied only by its 
use, was evidently taught at the same time with the 
elements of reading, and was pursued with great care 
for legibility and rapidity of execution, that pupils 
might be prepared for the necessary copying from dic- 
tation and for taking notes from oral teaching. Re- 
wards were offered to encourage skill in penmanship, 
and a species of short-hand was taught by special 
teachers. 

The practice work of pupils was executed on waxed 
tablets, with an iron stylus of which one end was 
pointed for writing, and the other flattened for eras- 
ures. The pupils imitated copies set by the teacher, 
at first apparently words that should introduce all the 
letters, and afterwards useful maxims. Quintilian sug- 
gests that to facilitate the acquisition of the move- 
ments, copies should be incised in a hard surface which 
the pupils might trace with the stylus, a device some- 
what akin to one that is now souietimes used, in copies 
faintly traced, over which pupils write following the 
tracing. 

The instruction in arithmetic, as has already been 
remarked, was confined to imparting a sufficient degree 
of expertness for practical purposes in the four simple 
rules. It was given by the elementary teachers, and 
was objectively aided by the use of the reckoning 



METHODS: PEN^MANSHIP; REETORIC 219 

board provided with pebbles, as among the Egyptians 
and Greeks. 

The method of instruction in the written use of the 
vernacular, passing into rhetoric, as it is described at 
large by Quintilian, was admirable and effective. It 
was made up of a theoretical and a practical part. 
The theoretic study consisted in a careful analysis and 
memorizing of models of poetic and prose expression 
and of the modes of conveying, illustrating, and en- 
forcing ideas, passing thus into the study of formal 
rhetoric. The practical side of the study, which was 
vigorously pushed, consisted in declamations, in an 
admirably graduated series of exercises in composi- 
tion, and in a course of lessons in extemporaneous 
speech judiciously graded to growing powers. The 
English-speaking peoples have not yet approximated 
to the excellence of the instruction given at this time 
by Eomans like Quintilian in the art of composition 
and oratory. 

The methods of instruction in law and medicine will 
be best considered when we come to treat of the organ- 
ization of these with other schools. A few other mat- 
ters of interest may however be treated in this con- 
nection. We should for example here recall what has 
before been mentioned about the use of versified text- 
books. These became common in a number of studies, 
even arithmetic being set to numbers more or less har- 
monious; and their long-continued use proves that 
they must have been a great aid to the memory in ages 
when memory was perforce more burdened than now. 

The discipline in the elementary schools was severe, 
and was enforced by the rod and other corporal inflic- 



220 ROME, DYNAMIC PERIOD 

tions. Quintilian however utters a vigorous protest 
against flogging as being slavish in character, as tend- 
ing to harden rather than reform, and as liable to be 
abused by injudicious teachers. Thus we have the 
same coarse modes of enforcing obedience, as in mod- 
ern times, resorted to by harrassed practical school- 
masters, and the same protests from the more enlight- 
ened spirits against rude physical punishments, sus- 
tained by much the same arguments. 

In the schools of rhetoric in Rome and its immedi- 
ate provinces, as well as at Athens, the discipline was 
exceedingly lax, and scandalous disorders were not un- 
frequent. This laxity and tendency to disorder not 
only sprang from the idleness and unruly disposition 
of many of the students, but too frequently was pro- 
voked by the affectations and peculiarities of teachers, 
their toadying to the rich, their canvassing for pupils, 
their lack of any originality in matter, and their obvi- 
ous catering for the applause rather than for the im- 
provement of their students. 

To check the lawlessness and disorders in the schools, 
laws were promulgated by some of the emperors regu- 
lating the registration of students, providing for testi- 
monials to character, forbidding student societies and 
too frequent attendance at theatres and places of con- 
vivial meeting, and punishing infractions of rules by 
public flogging and expulsion. Fines also appear some- 
times to have been imposed by these schools for dis- 
orderly conduct. Diligent students were allowed to 
remain at Rome until the age of twenty, when if they 
belonged in the provinces, they were required to return. 



discipline; teachers 221 

to their homes. Guizot^ cites an edict of Justinian 
as an example of such restrictions. 

The social estimate of the elementary teachers and 
of many of the private tutors was low, their condition 
far from enviable, and their fitness for their position 
too usually small. AVorn-out soldiers, and even worth- 
less slaves often engaged in teaching as a last means of 
gaining a precarious livelihood. Their pay was very 
small, about four dollars a year per pupil with occa- 
sional presents, for the eight months during which the 
schools were open. 

The higher teachers of grammar, rhetoric, philoso- 
phy, and law were, on the whole, held in much higher 
respect, and enjoyed some special privileges. The sala- 
ries of some of the more eminent were considerable, 
and in later days were paid by the state, which also 
exercised the prerogative of appointment and remoyal. 
By decrees of many of the emperors, beginning about 
150 A. D. with Antoninus Pius, a limited number of 
such teachers were exempted from all such burdens 
of the state as were inconsistent with their vosation, 
like military service and having soldiers quartered on 
them. Guizot, in the lecture above referred to, cites 
three edicts to this effect. 

As we shall see hereafter, in the later years of the 
empire the decay in other respects was attended by 
decay in education. Schools dwindled; attempts were 
made to sustain them by cheapening learning through 
the baldest epitomes; these attempts were of no avail' 
and Roman learning shared the fate of the empire, 
aud was buried beneath its ruins, — buried but not 
wholly lost. 

♦History' of Civilization in France, Lecture TV. 



CHAPTER XVI 

ORGANIZATION" OF SCHOOLS AND HIGHEE EDUCATION 

During what I have called the dynamic period of 
Eoman education, the old simple frugal virtuous 
domestic life of the wealthier classes gradually disap- 
peared; and with this change, as has already been 
said, domestic education given by parents was replaced 
by instruction given by private tutors and by schools. 
Tutorships more or less restricted gradually gave way 
to the tendency to a more public education in schools, 
and schools finally assumed a more settled and differ- 
entiated character, under the Roman instinct of or- 
ganization, so that by the close of the 1st century, 
A. D., we may discern tne outlines of a regular and 
consistent system of schools, and a division of duties 
in the work of youthful training. 

This system may be graphically illustrated by the 
following diagram: 



School of 
literator 



Elementary 

School of 
gramma ticiis 



Secondary 

School of 
rhetoric 



Special 

School of jurisprudence, 
School of philosophy, 
School of medicine. 

Before proceeding to describe the somewhat distinct 
functions of each of these grades of schools, it will 
be weil to notice the relation in which they stood to 
the state. Elementary education was never made a 
matter of governmental care and oversight. The 

(222) 



^0 PUBLIC ELEMEKTAKY EDUCATIOIn^ 223 

emperor Xerva, indeed, near the end of the 1st cen- 
tury, decreed that destitute and neglected children 
should receive the elements of education at the public 
expense, but his well-judged effort proved futile. Sev- 
eral of his successors, as likewise some benevolent pri- 
vate persons, gave considerable sums to lessen the 
evils of ignorance among the poor, some of which 
gifts were evidently intended for the relief of children 
of the better class whose parents had become impover- 
ished, — with the results that usually follow gifts for 
education the recipients of which must openly ac- 
knowledge their poverty; but no effectual public pro- 
vision was even made to promote general elementary 
education, nor was any encouragement offered to edu- 
cation by the state, as among the Chinese and Egyp- 
tians. It always remained a matter of private con- 
cern*. 

On the other hand, state encouragement of schools 
for higher education began with the earliest emperors, 
and, with some interruptions during the reign of bad 
rulers, it remained as a settled policy throughout the 
centuries of imperial rule. This encouragement took 
several forms, ^-now, of the erection of buildings for 
lectures, of which the Athenaeum founded by Had- 
rian " for instruction in the liberal arts " is an exam- 
ple; now of the founding of public libraries of which 
mention has already been made as an educational 
means; again, of the payment of public salaries ac- 
companied often by senatorial rank to eminent profes- 
sors of the liberal and professional branches, the cele- 
brated Quintilian being the first professor who received 

* Schmidt-Gesch. der Pad. i.846. 



224 ROME: SCHOOL ORGANIZATION^ 

a public salary in rhetoric; and finally, of exemptions 
granted to the higher teachers from many of the 
most onerous burdens of the state*. Hence " under 
favor of the emperors, there arose in all parts of the 
empire a highly developed high school organization " 
to which young men flocked from the less favored 
cities and provinces. 

All classes of schools had their vacations at the 
same time. Chief of these was a vacation of four 
months from June to October, rendered necessary by 
the climate of Italy and of the neighboring regions. 
Besides this there were many festival occasions which 
were holidays for the schools. Such, for example were 
the Saturnalia in December, lasting from three to 
seven days, and the five days of the festival in honor 
of Minerva which occurred in the middle of March. 

The organization and work of the several classes of 
schools indicated in the diagram given above may now 
receive our attention. The lower or strictly elemen- 
tary schools which received boys between the ages of 
about seven and twelve years, were taught by a class 
of teachers called literators. In these schools were 
taught the elements of reading, writing, and reckon- 
ing. When the number of pupils was large, the mas- 
ter had an assistant to aid him in his duties; besides 
which he called in the aid of the more advanced pupils 
for dictations and repetitions. 

The pupils were probably separated into divisions or 
grades according to their age and advancement. The 
schoolrooms had usually an ante-room where the pu- 
pils laid aside their over-garments; and they were pro- 

*Giiizot. His. of Civ. in Fraiuv. LciMiii-r 1\'. 



ELEMEN^TARY SCHOOLS 225 

vided with an elevated seat for the teacher, movable 
stools for the pupils, and the appurtenances needed for 
the work of instruction, — such as book-rolls, reckon- 
ing boards, and geometrical figures. 

A prominent object was the rules of the school 
written in large characters, and hung upon the wall; 
doubtless also the rod to enforce the rules was rarely 
wanting. Both Dositheos and Lucian give us lively 
pictures of the school-boy, crawling out of bed at 
sunrise, washing the sleepiness out of his eyes, and 
setting out for school followed by an attendant to 
carry the articles that he might need. He mounts the 
stairs with quiet tread, lays off his upper garment in 
the ante-room, smooths his hair, not without a furtive 
peep into a small hand mirror, greets his teacher and 
schoolmates, and then, boy-like, begins a scramble for 
the convenient stool. Some of these schools, especially 
in large cities, advanced their pupils farther than 
others, and thus approximated their work to that of 
the grade above them. 

The masters of the schools next higher in rank 
were called grammaticus, i. e., grammarian. These, 
which may be called higher elementary schools, ad- 
vanced the boy much farther in the studies which were 
begun by the literator, including usually Greek, im- 
parting the elements of grammar in the modern sense 
of the word, reading and expounding the Jworks of 
the poets and prose authors, and giving 'an elementary 
introduction to the cycle of studies embraced in the 
trivium and quadrivium. 

Attendance in these schools ended at the age of six- 
teen, when the boy assumed the manly toga, and en- 



226 kome: school okganization 

tered on the pursuit chosen by himself or by his 
parents. 

If this were of a forensic or other professional char- 
acter, his higher education began in the schools of 
rhetoric, which evidently bore much the same relation 
to the schools below and the specialized branches 
above as is borne by the higher classes of the German 
gymnasium and the French lycee, and possibly by the 
American college, to the grades below, and to the 
specialized work of the university or the professional 
schools above. Tliey were high schools which were 
encouraged by the state, and were gradually multiplied, 
to teach rhetoric with all which that name implied to 
a Koman, as a branch of polite learning adapted to fit 
a young man for a life of useful activity in the state ; 
schools of general culture, but not of disinterested 
culture, since they aimed to impart that which would 
be useful in the general course of life which educated 
but non-professional Eomans were likely to lead. 

It is evident from Quintilian and others that in 
addition to rhetoric, they presented so much of history, 
dialectics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, as was con- 
ceived to be needful for the orator, the statesman, and 
the man of affairs. Besides this, they evidently 
formed the stepping-stone to the study of law, to the 
pursuit of philosophy in the highest sense the word 
then had, and to whatever of study was then devoted 
to medicine. 

I am however inclined to think that the line of 
demarcation between the school of rhetoric and those 
of law and philosophy, was by no means sharply drawn. 
Such schools for the higher education looking to ora- 



SECONDAEY AND SPECIAL SCHOOLS 227 

tory and statesmanship, according to Karl Schmidt*, 
certainly began to exist in Eome as early as 100 B. C. ; 
but they evidently were not common until the time of 
the emperors; for in Cicero's youth, boys aspiring to 
law, oratory, and statesmanship, still attached them- 
selves, according to the old Koman custom, to some 
distinguised advocate, whom they attended, and learned 
by observing his practice how they might hope to 
succeed. 

Under the encouragement of successive emperors, 
schools of both rhetoric and philosophy were multi- 
plied at Rome and in the provinces of the empire, and 
Schmidt gives a considerable list of those that are 
known to have become famousf. There is also evi- 
dence that in Rome during this period there were fre- 
quent literary competitions set for the ambitious youth 
in these schools, which served as well for tests of their 
progress in their studies, as for an incitement to efforts 
for distinction. 

The schools of philosophy received grown youths 
and mature men, and were a direct continuation of 
the schools of rhetoric. In them were taught, not 
only the doctrines of the several schools of philosophic 
thought, of which those of the stoics were most largely 
influential at Rome, but likewise dialectics, and, in 
those of the Platonists, mathematics. Their chief 
aim however was to promote the moral development 
of young men. 

In the language of Seneca, " Philosophy gives 
health to the soul, and is not merely the best but the 

* Gesch. der Pad. Vol. 1, p. 78.5. 

+ lb. p. 870, See also Gibbon C.XX V, p. 542 of six volume edition. 



228 ROME: SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 

only guide to morality, the sole teacher of the highest 
art, the art of living." Indeed, the best and purest 
spirits in Rome were conscious of the fatal void which 
the dying belief in the old religion was leaving in the 
soul of men, and they strove to fill this void with the 
tenets and maxims of philosophy. Since religion was 
no longer influential in furnishing the needful basis 
for morality, they took refuge in philosophy, as we see 
was true of Seneca, and vainly hoped to find in its 
precepts the support which their souls needed.' Some 
of the more zealous professors even displayed a mis- 
sionary spirit, striving, apart from their public teach- 
ings, to exert a direct personal influence on the dress, 
the manners, and the modes of living of their disciples. 
To this end, they invited favorite adherents to their 
houses, set before them frugal repasts, such as were 
becoming to philosophers, and entertained them with 
conversation in which the grave questions of philoso- 
phy were mingled with sportive sallies, and with topics 
of the hour treated in a lighter vein. 

The example of such symposia proved contagious, 
and spread among the students, who established their 
own philosophic clubs, in which each member in turn 
furnished the materials for the feast, and questions 
were set with a prize for him who should answer them 
best. *' These questions referred to the explanation 
of dark passages in an author, or to the investigation 
of an incident in history, or to the proof of a philoso- 
phic proposition, or to the refutation of some fallacy, 
etc." It is obvious how useful in an educational 
sense such student associations are capable of being 



SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY 229 

made if conducted in the right spirit, which unfortu- 
nately they are too likely not to be. 

If, as we have seen was true in Athens, the specu- 
lative spirit, which is the soul of philosophy, did not 
long survive the founders of the various schools of 
thought, much less was it to be expected that it 
would exhibit any vigorous life among the Romans, 
whose strongly practical spirit was always averse to 
speculation. The best efforts of the schools of philo- 
sophy seem therefore never to have exhibited any strik- 
ing originality of thought or in its application; their 
attempts to educe from the doctrines of the ancient 
sages principles for the better guidance of life were 
powerless to check the progressive decline of manners; 
and they themselves shared the tendencies of a people, 
who, from lack of any high ideal aims, were gliding 
surely to decay. 

The schools of philosophy were the nearest approach 
that was ever made at Rome to a disinterested culture, 
a culture whose chief aim was the elevation of the 
human personality; but they began it at too advanced 
an age of their disciples, when early habits are little 
likely to be overcome; amongst a people whose heredi- 
tary tendencies had become utilitarian by uniform 
transmission through many generations; and finally, 
with too narrow a basis of studies, addressed to but a 
fraction of the spiritual nature. 

Of the instruction in medicine given in Rome, very 
little is known with any certainty. The names of 
most of those who became famous as physicians are 
those of Greeks or Orientals, some of whom received 
enormous fees. The schools of medicine of Alexan- 



230 



ROME: SCHOOL ORGAN^IZATIOI^- 



dria enjoyed a high reputation for centuries, and to 
come from there was a great advantage to a young 
physician; yet the large gains of celebrated physicians 
certainly offered strong inducements to enter the med- 
ical profession; and there is a great probability that 
a number of medical schools existed in Rome and its 
vicinity; that they were started by the gathering of 
young men to noted physicians; that the young man 
desiring to become a physician went to. his medical 
study after completing his course in rhetoric ; and that, 
besides the study of medical works, of which those of 
Galen, the supreme authority in medicine during the 
Middle Ages, were the chief, 
during the last centuries of 
the empire there was also 
a kind of clinical practice, 
since the poet Martial com- 
plians that physicians go to 
the bedside of their patients 
attended by a throng of stu- 
dents, and that a hundred 
icy hands explore the body 
of the sick person and cause 
him torment. 

It is not surprising that so little should be known of 
the training for a profession whose most useful services 
are performed in privacy by the bedsides of the sick. 
We know however that quackery was not wanting at 
Rome, and that works analogous to our modern 
" Household Practice of Medicine " were current, 
evidently intended for family use, and that injsome of 




Cladius Galen, 130-200? A. D. 



medicin^e; law 231 

them the usage was followed of popularizing knowl- 
edge by presenting it in verse. 

In the case of a people so celebrated as the Romans 
for their legal skill and the excellence of their system 
of jurisprudence, we should naturally expect more 
definite information about their mode of training for 
law, than has reached us in respect to medicine. In 
this expectation we are not disappointed, for the 
sources of information are abundant. 

In earlier times, as we have seen, the instruction in 
law was gained with that in oratory, by young men 
attaching themselves to some eminent advocate and 
learning their profession from his counsels and from 
observing his practice. From this primitive custom 
sprang the first schools of law, and these beyond a doubt 
originated in Rome. Groups of young men who had 
finished their course in the schools of rhetoric col- 
lected about some famous jurisconsult, who instructed 
them in the laws and the modes of practice, and who, 
finding the employment agreeable, received successive 
classes of young aspirants for forensic honors. In 
this same way, about the beginning of the 12th cen- 
tury, the university of Bologna originated through the 
assembling of young men about the celebrated jurist 
Irnerius. 

The instruction in law at Rome was therefore a mat- 
ter of purely private concern, the students choosing 
their preceptor and paying the fees that he demanded 
for his services. From these voluntary assemblages 
of students arose the schools of law; and so rapid was 
their growth, that in the reign of Tiberius, early in 
the 1st century, A. D., there already existed in Rome 



232 ROME: SCHOOL ORGAKIZATIOK 

two great rival ^schools. One of these, called the 
Cassian, was conservative in character, held to a strict 
interpretation of the edicts and judicial decisions, and 
was favorable to the imperial rule; the other, called 
the Proculian, was rationalistic in its teachings, desired 
to base law on the universal conception of justice, and 
advocated the republic. 

In this manner during the dynamic period there 
arose^in the Roman empire three great centres of legal 
instruction, viz., in Rome, as early as the 1st century; 
during the 3d century in Berytus, where Ulpian and 
Papinian taught, and in the 5th century in Constanti- 
nople. We have no reason to suppose that these were 
the only schools of law in so vast an empire, but 
merely that they are the best known to us from the 
celebrity of their teachers. Indeed there are indica- 
tions that the instruction in law never wholly ceased 
in some favored spots, even during the confusion of 
the darkest periods that succeeded the downfall of the 
Roman empire. 

The teaching consisted in part of a series of public 
lectures to which all had access, and in which inter- 
esting legal principles and questions were discussed. 
Of these lectures which were an introduction to the 
science of law, it is supposed that we have examples 
in the Institutes of Gaius, a celebrated jurisconsult 
who probably lived in the 2d century. Another part 
of the teaching which succeeded the public lectures 
was wholly private, and consisted of systematic in- 
struction in the laws, given to a small group of stu- 
dents, followed by an introduction to practice through 
disputations [on important legal questions. The lee- 



LAW 233 

tures were probably given extemporaneously but from 
carefully prepared notes, as Plutarch tells us was the 
practice with professors of rhetoric and philosophy. 
From the instruction given in these schools sprang 
many legal text-books, such as the Institutes, which 
were treatises introductory to the science of law, the 
Eesponses or opinions of the author on legal questions, 
and the Digests, which were a systematic arrangement 
of the legal principles and decisions of a law professor 
or group of professors. The Institutes and the Digest 
or Pandects compiled under Justinian continue names 
earlier given to legal text-books. 

Such is a brief account of the series of schools 
which grew up in Eome during what I have called the 
dynamic period, the period of definite organization 
and differentiation of duties, as contradistinguished 
from the static period in which there was very little 
trace of organization. This system, as may be seen, 
was singularly complete, when we consider the times 
during it grew up and the means of culture then avail- 
able, and consider also that it was entirely a growth 
out of voluntary efforts to meet the needs of the times. 
Its fullest expression as a system coincides with the 
centuries of the imperial regime ; but its origin is to 
be found in influences springing from Greece, and act- 
ing during the two preceding centuries on a people 
fond of organization. 



CHAPTER XVII 

EDUCATIONAL OPINIONS OF EMINENT ROMANS 

As is true in all other history, the history of educa- 
tion naturally lifts into prominence the names of men 
who distinguished themselves in its annals, whether as 
the authors of works long influential on the course of 
instruction, or as teachers whose methods and example 
were of enduring influence, or as writers whose 
thoughts on education are either valuable in them- 
selves, or are important for purposes of comparison to 
exhibit the development of educational theories. Of 
those whose works were long familiar from their use 
in schools, several have already been mentioned, like 
Donatus in grammar, Florus and Eutropius in His- 
tory, Strabo in geography, Ptolemy in geography and 
astronomy, Galen in medicine, and Julius Hyginus, 
the versifier of astronomy. 

Besides these, it will be profitable to examine some- 
what more fully the pedagogical ideas of a few men 
who were of special eminence during the dynamic 
period of Roman education. These men were M. 
Terentius Varro*, reputed the most learned man of his 
time, Cicero the renowned orator, the philosopher 
Seneca, Quintilian the famous teacher of rhetoric, and 
Plutarch, who, though by birth a Greek, taught long 
at Rome, and has exerted an enduring influence on 

* M. rereutius N'arro, 116 to 27 1>. (.". 
(284) 



VARRO , 235 

many generations by his biographies of great men. 
The educational opinions of such men are of unfail- 
ing interest, as well from the eminence of their source 
as from their own intrinsic worth. 
Tarro 

This manwas born of an old senatorial family, and was 
educated with the ancient Roman strictness at a time 
when Grecian fashions were becoming every day more 
prevalent in Rome. He was a participant in the fierce 
party struggles of his day, in which he served with 
distinction, and through which he gained the danger- 
ous honor of being proscribed by the opposing faction. 
On account of his vast learning, he was appointed by 
Caesar, whom as a partisan of Pompey he had opposed, 
to organize the library " through which he strove to 
lay the foundation of a universal literature for his 
universal empire." 

After the death of C^sar and a period of exile under 
the triumvirate, he made his peace with Augustus, 
and passed the remainder of his life in retirement and 
study, dying finally at the great age of eighty-nine. 
Though he was evidently a person of great social and 
political importance in his day, he was chiefly distin- 
guished among his contemporaries for the great extent 
and variety of his learning, and for his unwearied 
literary activity. He says himself that he was the 
author of 490 books, though others declare that his 
works included 020 books under 74 separate titles. 
Most of these are now lost or exist only in fragments. 

A treatise on " The Education of Children" which 
he wrote is known only from a few fragments; but 
from these it is apparent that he approves and recom- 



236 ROMAN^ EDUCATORS: VARRO 

mends for children the strict care that was taken with 
his own early diet, dress, and sleep; that in early 
training, he lays great stress on fit companionship, on 
singing, and on sports, from which he would exclude 
all such as exert an unfavorable influence on the dis- 
position; and, most remarkable of all, that he insists 
that fear and all undue excitement of feeling are un- 
favorable to learning, whilst pleasure is an et'ective 
spur to it, — a principle that, emphasized by Locke and 
now generally admitted, is not fully acted upon by 
educators, even at the present day. 

It is also apparent that he gives some attention to 
the education of girls; since a fragment exists in which 
he recommends that girls should learn embroidery, 
that they may be the better judges of it and of all 
textile fabrics; and that they should not too early be 
allowed to discard the dress of the girl to assume that 
of the mature woman. 

The works which he wrote on school subjects are, 
however, of greater importance in the history of peda- 
gogy than his educational ideas, so far at least as we 
have any knowledge of the latter. Thus he wrote 
treatises on grammar in the wide sense of the word, one 
of which is a treatise on the Latin tongue, six of 
whose twenty-four books* have come down to us in a 
somewhat mutilated condition, yet conveying items of 
information not elsewhere preserved. He wrote also 
works on antiquities, on rhetoric and philosophy, on 
geometry and its application to land measurement, and 
on agriculture, the last of which has been preserved 

•Hook V to X. 



» 

CICERO 237 

and is valuable as a source of information on ancient 
husbandry. 

Most interesting of all, is his statement of what he 
considered school subjects or liberal arts. In this he 
includes nine, being the entire Trivium and Quadrivi- 
um, and also medicine and architecture. He thus 
omits from Cato's list war, agriculture, and law, 
probably on account of their technical character; but 
includes two subjects which later were omitted as 
purely professional. This list of Varro was probably 
the forerunner of the seven liberal arts of the Middle 
Ages. 

Cicero 

Cicero, renowned for nineteen centuries, not only as 




Demosthenes, 384-322, B, C. Marcus Tullius Cicero, 107-43, B. C. 

an orator with no peer save Demosthenes, but also as 
the consummate master of the resources of his native 
tongue, is a good representative of the dynamic period 
and of its ideas at a time when old Eoman habitudes 
had largely yielded to Grecian influences. Born of a 
good rural family, his extraordinary youthful promise 
caused him to be educated in the city by the best 



238 ROMAN EDUCATORS: CICERO 

teachers of the time, one of whom was the poet 
Archias, whom in after years he defended in one of 
his best known orations. 

To great talent, he joined an equal industry in mas- 
tering all that related to eloquence, philosophy, and 
law, the first two from Greek masters, the last from 
Q. Mucius Scaevola, the greatest lawyer of that period, 
to whom he attached himself after the ancient Roman 
custom. Thus his training combined in itself both 
the old and the new, with the Greek mode prepon- 
derating. This predominance was increased when, 
after winning his first oratorical laurels at home, at 
the age of twenty-seven he repaired to Greece, and 
spent two years at Athens and Rhodes in the farther 
pursuit of the Greek rhetoric and philosophy, and in 
correcting some defects of voice and delivery.* 

From this time his history is generally known. His 
rapid rise through all the grades of office until he 
reached the consulship, his suppression of the con- 
spiracy of Catiline, and his prominent part in the 
events of the troubled period during which he lived, 
are recorded for us in orations of his, which, from 
their frank egotism have an autobiographic interest. 
At the age of sixty-four he fell a victim to the revenge 
of Antony, whom he had bitterly denounced in his 
philippics. 

His views on education, which entitle him to notice 
in this connection, are to be gathered from incidental 
remarks, occurring in his philosophic and rhetorical 
works, and having reference chiefiy to the training of 
the orator; and very much of their importance is due 
to the well-earned celebrity of their author. 

* Schmidt, Gesch. der Padagogik. Vol. I. p. 813, 4th enlarged edition. 



HIS EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES 239 

They may be thus concisely stated : 

(1) Education begins in early childhood with impres- 
sions made upon the senses, especially in boyish sports, 
and hence, during this impressible period, great care 
should be exercised with regard to surroundings, com- 
panions, and example of parents and friends. 

(2) Boys should be accustomed to hardships and 
practised in patience, and should be aided and en- 
couraged to choose the best men to whom to attach 
themselves as disciples. 

(3) The feelings of youth should receive careful 
direction, that they may avoid excesses and sensual 
indulgence, may be regardful of the old, and mindful 
of the claims of morality, and especially may have a 
keen sense of honor, coupled with a desire for distinc- 
tion. 

(4) Much care should be given to the cultivation of 
memory and to storing it with choice passages from 
the best authors; and, to aid memory, he strongly 
recommends a mnemonic system ascribed to Simonides, 
in which things to be remembered are associated in an 
orderly manner with the parts of some familiar place.* 

(5) The young man should choose his vocation, pro- 
vided that it be respectable, with sole reference to his 
tastes and capabilities. 

(6) For the orator, in addition to native talent and 
predilection, there is needed a thorough training, 
which, besides a noble and free early education, should 
include industrious practice in both oral and written 
expression of thought, and an exact knowledge of law 
and justice, of history, especially that of one's native 

* De Oratore, Book II, C. 86-88. 



240 



ROMAN" EDUCATORS: SE^^ECA 



country, and of philosophy, which is a school of virtue. 

(7) The study of Greek, i. e., of some foreign lan- 
guage, is of great importance to the orator. 

(8) The results of a study of nature and of man, 
and thus of education in general, are of little worth 
unless they tend to right action: i. e., the trend of 
education should be dominantly moral. 

From these opinions, it may readily be seen that in 
Cicero the current of Greek ideas is still mingled with 
not a little love for the old ways, that he has no regard 
for disinterested knowledge, and that indeed all is 
Roman and utilitarian. As regards the value of thor- 
ough preparation for one's life work, the example of 
Cicero is of greater pedagogical interest than any edu- 
cational views that he incidentally expressed; for it 
shows us to what mastery of all needful subjects mat- 
ter, to what pains-taking preparation, and to what 
minute study of the niceties of his native language, 
both in use of words, and in choice of modes of ex- 
pression, much of his unequalled excellence was due. 
Seneca 

Seneca, famous as the greatest Roman writer* on 
philosophy, was born at Cor- 
dova in Spain. From his 
great youthful promise, his 
father, Seneca the Rhetori- 
cian, noted for his remark- 
able memory, destined him 
to the career of an orator, 
and educated him at Rome. 
Here he followed the lec- 
tures of the philosophers j^ucius ANNrKTTThNKCA 3 h. c 
more zealously than those of 95 a. d. 





CHIEF END OF EDUCATION" 241 

the rhetoricians; and though possessing considerable 
powers of eloquence, he cared little to use them in for- 
ensic contests. 

He was early made senator, and filled some honor- 
able offices, but from certain suspicions of unworthy 
conduct, he was banished to Corsica, where he re- 
mained several years, studying philosophy, writing 
philosophic treaties, and indulging in most unphilo- 
sophic repinings and entreaties. Recalled to Rome, he 
was made tutor to the youthful Nero, whose depraved 
nature afforded little encouragement to the lessons of 
the philosopher; and finally, at the age of sixty-nine, 
he became one of the many victims of his former 
pupil. 

His educational opinions are incidentally expressed 
in his philosophical essays, and some of them, from 
their felicity of expression, have passed into pedagogic 
maxims." 

His idea of the chief end of education is that it 
should guard against effeminacy, the passions, and 
vain fancies; should promote self-rule, truthfulness, 
and a reasonable self-confidence; and should insure 
purity of morals and serenity of soul. Character 
therefore is his aim. To obey the Divine Power is 
freedom, in his opinion. But man is destined to act 
as well as to reflect, and readiness to do both should 
be developed in him. Virtue must express its growth 
in deeds, and permit the gains of study and of 
thought to show themselves in actions. 

Seneca clearly recognizes the innate differences in 
individual abilities and proclivities, and the consequent 



242 EOMAN EDUCATORS: SENECA 

need that educators should shape their requirements 
and modes of procedure in view of these differences. 
He believes, not as some more recent theorists seem to 
have believed, that the native dispositions can be 
wholly changed by education, but that they may be 
profoundly modified thereby, — that " by wise laws, 
and above all by a prudent training which joins strict- 
ness with mildness, the tendencies to evil may be cor- 
rected, whilst the desirable dispositions may be brought 
the sooner to their highest possible perfection." 

Discipline he would have as mild as is consistent 
with the attainment of its object in the moral advance- 
ment of the young. Like the Grecian philosophers, 
he thinks that the spirit is weakened and made servile 
by slavish treatment, but that it uplifts itself and 
learns self-confidence by judicious praise. Punish- 
ment should be resorted to only as a final necessity. 
"He who punishes much punishes unjustly;" hence 
in its infliction there should be no haste nor anger, for 
" punishment tends so much more to reformation as it 
is determined on with deliberation." 

He would never permit a child to gain anything by 
begging humbly for it, nor to overcome by obstinate per- 
sistence; but on the other hand, he would freely grant 
to him when quiet and self-respecting, fitting things 
which would have been refused to his humility or his 
cries. N"or likewise does he think it well that youth 
should be frequently overcome in equal competitions, 
lest they should become timid and wanting in a proper 
confidence in their own ability. These ideas on the 
management of the young are obviously in harmony 
with the best modern thought on this subject. 



RELATION?" OF TEACHER AND PUPIL 24:3 

The relation which Seneca would have established 
between teacher and pupil would be marked on the one 
side by kindly and conscientious care, inciting on the 
other to noble endeavor and to efforts for spiritual 
elevation, the teacher distinguishing himself not so 
much by what he imparts as by the spirit in which he 
imparts it, and winning for himself a permanent hold 
on the pupil's gratitude, rather by his benevolent and 
friendly disposition, than by any skill he may display. 
" Such an one," he says, " who shares his all with us 
and awakes our slumbering powers, we must hold in 
as high esteem as a kindly physician, or as our nearest 
and dearest relatives." 

He clearly recognizes the truth that in education 
example is more effective than precept, and that pre- 
cept to be effective must be illustrated and enforced by 
the lives of teachers and parents. His pointed state- 
ment of this truth has become the familiar pedagogic 
maxim ' ' Longum iter est per praecepta, breve et efficax per 
exempla,^^ — long the route by precept, short and effect- 
ive by example. 

He sighed for the good old times and the vanished 
virtues of Rome, and wished that education might, as 
in ancient days, be limited to what is applicable and 
useful in life From a change in the form but not in 
the idea of his complaint in this respect, has arisen the 
maxim so often quoted by utilitarians, '' Non scholae 
sed vitx est docendum,^^ learning should be not for school 
but for life. Seneca's idea of the useful, however, 
differed from that of the present day; for, while he 
would eliminate from education all useless things, he 
believed that philosophy as the doctrine of virtue is 



244 ROMAN EDUCATORS: QUINTILIAN" 

the study most truly useful for life, and that the 
"liberal arts" of his day should be pursued as pre- 
paratives to philosophy and virtue. In education as 
in all other things, due moderation should, he thinks, 
be observed. The burdens imposed on youths should 
be fitted to their powers, and especially a confusing 
multitude of things should never be allowed to distract 
their attention. Far better that they should devote 
themselves to a few good authors than that they should, 
skim over many. '"' Nonmulta sed multum.^^^ not many 
things but much. Likewise he discourages much cur- 
sory reading, as merely distracting attention and 
nourishing superficiality, his oft-repeated maxim 
" Timeo hominem unius libri,''^ I fear a man of a single 
book, concisely expressing his sense of the benefits of 
intellectual concentration. 

In conclusion we may say, not only that many of 
his philosophic teachings are of pedagogic import, 
direct or remote, but also that some of them have so 
strong a flavor of Christian truth that there have not 
been lacking suspicions that he was at heart favorable 
to Christianity ; and there have even been made efforts 
to connect him with another illustrious victim of 
Nero, the apostle Paul. 

M. FaMus Quintilianus, 40 to 118 ? A. D. 

This celebrated rhetorician and teacher, who has be- 
queathed to succeeding ages a treatise on oratory of 
rare excellence, and has embodied in it an account of 
the means and methods of instruction in Kome at this 
period, more complete and satisfactory than any other 
that antiquity has transmitted to us, was born in a 



PERSOIs^AL HISTORY 245 

small city in Northern Spain, near the borders of what 
is now the province of \avarre. The exact year of 
his birth is not known, but from circumstances in his 
early education, it is thought to have been about 40 
A. D. 

Early in life he went to Rome for his education, and 
there the residue of his life was spent, with the excep- 
tion of a brief sojourn in his native country during 
his early manhood. He adopted the profession of an 
advocate, in which he gained distinction; but later he 
became a public teacher of rhetoric, and his success 
in this vocation was so great that he had the honor of 
being the first professor who received a salary from the 
imperial government. 

iVfter twenty years of service as teacher, as he tells 
us, he abandoned a public career, measurably at least, 
and, at the instance of his friends, he entered on the 
preparation of his still widely-known Institutes of 
Oratory. From the introduction to the 4th Book of 
the Institutes, we learn that while engaged in this 
work, the emperor Domitian appointed him tutor to 
his grand-nephews; and this same emperor of evil 
repute also bestowed on him the title and insignia of 
the consulship. 

Somewhat late in life, he married a young girl who 
died at the age of nineteen, leaving him two sons, the 
younger of whom died not many years after the mother, 
followed a few years later by his elder brother, a prom- 
ising child on whom his father had centered great 
hopes. These domestic incidents we learn from the 
introduction to the 6th Book of the Institutes, in 
which Quintilian has left an affecting eulogy of these 



246 ROMAN EDUCATORS: QUINTILIAN 

members of his family, the last of whom had recently 
died. He is supposed to have died about 118 A. D. 

Such are the few facts that are known, about the life 
of Quintilian, nearly all of A^hich are gathered from 
the Introductions to the 1st, 4th, and 6th Books of 
the Institutes, and from occasional allusions to his 
career in the body of the work. 

His accounts of Roman elementary education, with 
his own ideas on some important questions in regard 
to it, will be found in the 1st Book of the Institutes 
and the first few chapters of the 2d Book. Of the 
remainder of the work, which is devoted to the train- 
ing of the orator, the first chapter of Book 10th is im- 
portant as a suggestion of a course of reading, and of 
the manner in which authors should be read; the sec- 
ond chapter of Book 11th, for its discussion of memory 
and of the means by which it may best be improved; 
and the first two chapters of Book 12th, for the depic- 
tion of the character of the ideal orator, which is in 
most respects equally good as what would doubtless 
have been his characterization of a good and well- 
instructed man. Since what has already been said of 
methods of instruction, of subjects of elementary 
study, and of the comprehension of studies, has been 
derived largely from the Institutes, we may here limit 
ourselves to a survey of Quintilian's opinions on 
several important educational topics. 

He has a high opinion of the average capacity of 
boys. "You will find." he says, "the greater num- 
ber of persons both ready in apprehending and quick 
in learning, since such quickness is natural to man. — 
Dull and unteachable persons are no more produced 
in the usual course of nature than are those marked 



HIGH OPIKION^ OF boys' CAPACITY 247 

by monstrosity. Among boys, good promise is shown 
in the far greater number; and if this promise disap- 
pears in the progress of time, it is manifest that not 
native ability but care was wanting." 

This high opinion of average human nature is doubt- 
less far more just than many educators are willing to 
grant, who are ready to attribute to the parsimony of 
nature meagre results which are largely due to their 
own lack of skill and intelligent care. 

A natural correlative to this opinion is a high 
estimate of the efficacy of early education and early 
impressions. Like other ancient writers, Quintilian 
strongly emphasizes the abiding effects of early influ- 
ences, and the strength of early habits, especially 
those of an objectionable character, which, like the 
flavors given to new vessels and the colors with which 
white wool is dyed, adhere, he says, with singular 
tenacity. Hence all the child's associations need to 
be guarded with especial care. 

He recommends also that in early years boys should 
learn many useful things by way of play, that maturer 
years may be spared for more serious tasks. 

This fruitful suggestion of Quintilian waited long 
before being embodied by 
Froebel in the kindergarten. 
Though, like Froebel, he 
would include the elements 
of reading in this early in- 
struction, he would have it 
retain carefully the charac- 
ter of an amusement, that 
the child may conceive no 
distaste for learning, and he Frederick froebel, 1782-1825 




248 KOMAK EDUCATOES: QUINTILIAN 

would have it attended with praises for small success 
and the delights of small victories. 

Like Locke, he lays great basis on the choice of a 
teacher, on his character, and on the importance of 
his work. In Book 2d of the Institutes, he sketches 
his ideal of a teacher, — a man pure and elevated in 
morals, endowed with perfect self-control, attracting 
the affection of his pupils by his benevolence of char- 
acter, tempering authority with mildness and courtesy, 
dignified yet easily accessible, judicious in bestowing 
praise and in the criticism of efforts, an ardent ad- 
mirer of all that is good and noble, fond of the work 
of instruction, and able and eminent in his calling. 

"For my part," he says, " I do not consider him 
who is unwilling to teach little things in the number 
of preceptors; but I argue that the ablest teachers 
can teach little things best if they will;" and in an- 
other place, he says, " AVould Philip king of Macedon 
have wished the first principles of learning to be com- 
municated to his son Alexander by Aristotle, the 
greatest philosopher of that age, and would Aristotle 
have undertaken that office, if they had not both 
thought that the first rudiments of instruction are 
best treated by the most accomplished teacher, and 
have an influence on the whole course?" 

Furthermore he impresses on teachers thus fitted 
for their vocation the necessity of studying the special 
tastes, abilities, and dispositions of their pupils, that 
they may guide themselves by such knowledge, and 
never " overburden their weakness ". He would also 
have them observe due alternations of vigorous appli- 
cation and refreshing play; and make use of such 



PREFERS PUBLIC TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS 249 

incentives as praise and the desire of honor and dis- 
tinction, rather than blows, which he considers a pun- 
ishment fit only for slaves, tending to harden boys or 
to make them abject, and wholly needless if their tasks, 
adapted to their abilities, be regularly exacted. 

With regard to the importance of developing a high 
type of moral character, Quintilian is no whit inferior 
in emphasis to Seneca; and, since he is intent on the 
proper education of the orator, in the 12th Book of 
the Institutes he makes it the foremost requisite that 
he should be a good man, morally upright and just; 
and he adopts Cato's definition of the orator as "a 
good man skilled in speaking". Such a character, he 
insists, "though it receives certain impulses from 
nature, requires nevertheless to be brought to matur- 
ity by instruction," since it is needful that youth 
should learn what virtues are and be early habituated 
to practise them. 

So far as I know, Quintilian is the first among the 
ancients who has left recorded a definite defence of 
public education against private tutorship. He answers 
at the outset the objections to schools, on the score of 
danger to morals, and of the supposed greater effective- 
ness of instruction given exclusively to one or a very 
few pupils. As to the first, he thinks the danger of 
corruption in his time was greater at home than at 
school, and that the gravest risks to which boys were 
exposed were from the tendencies early imbibed from 
the vile example of parents. To the second objec- 
tion, he answers that the entire attention of a teacher 
cannot profitably be given one pupil, since the boy's 



250 ROMAN educators: QUINTILIAN^ 

work in memorizing, meditating, and writing is hin- 
dered by any interference ; and that much of the work 
of instruction is such that " whatever be the number 
of the audience, each will still carry away the whole." 
In favor of public education he urges that boys 
should early be accustomed to publicity: 

(1) that they may not be abashed at the presence of 
numbers, since their duties as men will require them 
to be brought into frequent contact with their fellow 
men; 

(2) that they may acquire common sense, which can 
be gained only from society ; 

(3) that by measuring their powers against those of 
their companions, they may, on the one hand escape 
ennui, and on the other avoid " becoming swollen with 
empty conceit"; 

(4) because of the enduring "friendships which, 
formed at school, remain in full force even to old age, 
as if cemented with a certain religious obligation "; 

(5) because boys at school learn much by imitation 
of their schoolmates, and are spurred to exert them- 
selves by emulation, whilst receiving valuable lessons, 
not merely from what is taught to others, but by what 
is commended or corrected or reproved in them ; and 

(6) because of the economy of time of an accom- 
plished teacher, who can reach many by the same effort 
that he would use for one, and even more effectually, 
from the inspiration of numbers to the teacher, and 
the contagion of sympathy among the pupils. 

It is doubtful whether the argument for public edu- 
cation has been stated more completely and conscisely 
since the days of Quintilian. 



LOWER AND HIGHER EDUCATION 251 

It is interesting also to observe that Quintilian felt 
himself moved to discuss with some warmth a question 
which is of present importance in our own country, — 
the question of the proper division of duties between 
schools of a lower and a higher grade, and the fixing 
of the stage of advancement at which youth should 
pass from the one to the other. In his day, the con- 
tention was between the schools of the grammarians 
and those of the rhetoricians; and in the first chapter 
of Book 2d of the Institutes, he takes part in this on 
behalf of the teachers of rhetoric with much clearness 
and cogency, proposing a suitable dividing line in a 
series of school work in which boundaries are more 
difiicult to fix than between the duties of high-school 
and college. 

His suggestions for the first steps in composition are 
so judicious that the teacher of to-day would find it 
profitable to study the 9th chapter of Book 1st and 
the 4th of Book 2d of the Institutes. In these first 
exercises, which pass from relation of fables to para- 
phrases of poets, thence to anecdotes and character 
sketches, and so to historic narrations, the matter is 
given and attention is fixed on varied and effective 
forms of expression. In all this he says: "Let that 
age he daring, invent much, and delight in what it 
invents, though it be not often sufficiently severe and 
correct. The remedy for exuberance is easy ; barren- 
ness is incurable by any labor." His suggestions also 
as to the teacher's treatment of such themes, tolerat- 
ing much, altering some things with clear reasons for 
the alterations, and praising others, but with the 
statement that there is something better to which the 



252 KOMAN EDUCATORS: QUINTILIAN 

boy should hope in future to attain, are highly judi- 
cious and instructive. 

Since in the time of Quintilian memory was more 
carefully trained than is usual in these days of many 
books, his suggestions as to how it may be improved, 
though they contain nothing especially novel, will not 
be without interest, coming as they do from one who, 
according to his own account, usually wrote out and 
then memorized his speeches verbatim. 

At that time as now, certain mnemonic arts, or quasi 
mechanical contrivances for aiding memory, were 
warmly recommended. Quintilian gives a clear ac- 
count of some of these; but, while conceding that 
they may have some efficacy, since they are approved 
even by Cicero, he does not recommend them, because 
they burden memory with another thing to retain. 
The great art of memory, in his opinion, consists in 
frequent repetition, and meditation with fixed atten- 
tion. Second only to this is analysis, and arrangement 
in the order of thought. To these may be added as 
convenient helps vocal associations by repeating aloud;, 
local associations, as with the place on the written 
page; and some minor similarities and ideas of origin. 
To those of weak verbal memory he recommends to- 
memorize only their subject-matter and its order of 
arrangement, trusting to these to suggest fit expres- 
sion. This last recommendation accords with Cato's 
maxim already quoted (page 199) — " Get a firm hold 
of your matter and words will come fast enough." 

Finally the remarks of Quintilian on the choice of 
reading matter, on the manner of reading, and on the 
respective merits of various kinds of reading, accom- 



BOOKS AND READTN'Ct 253 

panied by judicious criticisms and characterizations of 
the great authors of Greece and Kome, are of great 
pedagogic interest. This is the chapter* which the 
historian Gibbon says he had often perused with pleas- 
ure; and a portion of it is not without resemblance to 
attempts made recently to select the best hundred 
words in the English language, though the list of 
Quintilian bears more the character of a catalogue 
raisonn6. It is a pity that a chapter, otherwise so ex- 
cellent, should be marred by a fulsome eulogy of the 
tyrant Domitian. 

In the choice of books to be read, his suggestion 
that those only should be considered that have stood 
the test of time, would be thoroughly timely in this 
age of the multiplying of books, too many of which 
are worthless and hence are soon eliminated by the 
searching ordeal of the sound average sense of man- 
kind. The rule which he gives for selection is stated 
in concrete terms adopted from Livy, that the orator 
should first read Demosthenes and Cicero, and then 
those authors which most resemble these. This rule, 
reduced to a more general expression, would be to read 
first what is generally allowed to be very best in any 
department of literature, with full assurances that 
afterwards what falls far short of this high standard 
will meet with little toleration, — a severe but doubt- 
less wholesome rule. 

His advice as to the manner of reading is in all re- 
spects excellent. Thus he advises that we should read 
much rather than many books; that all reading should 

* Institutes, Book X. C. I. 



254 EOMAN educators: quintiliai^^ 

be accompanied with intellectual digestion, '* that what 
we read may be committed to memory and reserved for 
imitation, not when it is in a crude state, but after 
being softened and as it were triturated by frequent 
repetition; " that we should read always with care and 
attentive consideration and not finally leave the thing 
read until we have gone over it afresh to assure the 
proper relation of the parts to each other; and lastly 
that our reading should be attended with judgment 
and critical discernment, since great authors "some- 
times make a false step, or sink under their burdens, 
or do not always equally apply their minds." 

His remarks on authors are always apt and pointed, 
and abound in animated and felicitous expressions; 
as, for example, when in speaking of Aeschines in 
contrast with Demosthenes, he says of him, " as being 
less confined in scope, he has more appearance of mag- 
nitude, yet he has only more flesh but less muscle; " 
but these critical estimates are too remotely related to 
pedagogy to need any special attention here. 

It is not too much to say that Quintilian treated 
with greater fulness and insight a greater variety of 
important pedagogic topics than any other ancient 
author. His work was of persistent influence on the 
pedagogy of succeeding ages; for it is said that the 
instruction in the monasteries used many of its sug- 
gestions until the 11th century. It was then lost from 
view for three centuries; and its rediscovery in the 
14th century was a subject of rejoicing among the 
Humanists, whose theories were long influenced by its 
teaching. 



PLUTAECH 255 

Plutarch — 1st and 2d Centuries, A. D. 

We come now finally to consider the services and the 
educational views of a man, who, tliough born in 
Greece, where he also closed his honorable career, yet 
spent a considerable portion of his active life in Eome; 
and who as a citizen and probably as an official of the 
empire, belongs equally to Greece and Rome. Plu- 
tarch, always most widely known as the author of the 
parallel lives of illustrious men, was a philosopher as 
well as a biographer. 

Just as in the " Lives " he brings together on equal 
terms the heroes of Greece and Rome, so in the edu- 
cational ideas which are ascribed to him, we find 
opinions derived from the Greeks and especially from 
Aristotle, modified and colored by the better kind of 
Roman utilitarianism. Hence he may without vio- 
lence be considered as a representative of the union of 
Greek and Roman pedagogy in the closing ages of 
antiquity. Although the "Lives" can hardly be 
called a pedagogic work, yet they are not without peda- 
gogic interest, both because of the wide educational 
influence that they have exerted during many centuries 
on the characters of men who rose to distinction, and 
because this effect of theirs was wholly in consonance 
with the method by which the ancient classic nations 
strove to train their youth to desirable types of char- 
acter, by familiarizing them through songs and narra- 
tions with the deeds and characters of heroic men. 

The pedagogical opinions of Plutarch are to be 
gathered frooi his essays, which are entitled " Morals ", 
especially from those on the Art and manner of 
hearing, on Marriage, and on the Means of knowing 



256 ROMAN EDUCATORS: PLUTARCH 

our progress in virtue ; but chiefly from the essay- 
on the Training of children. The authenticity of the 
last-named essay indeed is doubted by some critics; 
yet it is generally included in his works, and in any 
case is of great value in the history of education as 
being what is probably the latest connected treatise on 
education that has come down to us from ancient days. 

The views of Plutarch on the early care and training 
of children, on the choice of a teacher, and on the 
nature of early discipline, coincide so closely with 
those of Quintilian, not to mention other ancient 
authors, that they need not be stated here. Some of 
his felicities of expression and illustration, in regard 
to these topics, have been used by such later writers as 
Erasmus and Montaigne, to 
adorn their thoughts, and 
will be met with in the dis- 
cussion of those authors. 

Plutarch makes the aim 
of education to be, so to 
habituate children to right 
and desirable things by a 
careful training, that when 
mature they shall be pleased 

^ . Michael Eyquem de Montaigne 

only with the beautiful and 1533-1593 

good, and shocked by the ugly and the evil. The 
character of man, he believes, is and remains a result 
of long continued habituation. Those only are to be 
considered complete men in whom are combined 
philosophy and public efficiency, or in other words, 
high spiritual culture and practical activity. 

This characterization of the complete man would 




NATURE, REASON, EXERCISE 257 

aptly describe Plutarch himself; for besides being a 
philosopher and man of wide erudition, who for many 
years lectured on philosophy in Rome, he is believed 
by some to have been honored with the consulship in 
Rome, and is known to have held important offices in 
his native country. 

In education, he says, three things must conspire, 
— nature; reason, in which he includes instruction; — 
and use or exercise; and just "as in husbandry there 
is needed the concurrence of good soil, a good hus- 
bandman, and good seed, so in education, good natural 
talents need a good teacher and good doctrines and 
admonitions." Moreover, as in husbandry an unkindly 
soil may be greatly improved by thorough tillage, so 
he believes that a niggardly nature may be measurably 
atoned for by good instruction and diligent industry. 
Believing thus in the effectiveness of good training, 
he encourages teachers to much perseverance in their 
efforts, even in the case of youth who are apparently 
of little promise. 

As regards the subject-matter of education, since 
Plutarch recognizes speech and reason as the two 
chief indications of man's distinctively endowed 
nature, he urges that the greatest attenticn should be 
given to their due development. Hence the youth 
should be carefully trained to avoid all unconsidered 
speech, all loose and trifling conversation, and all mere 
extemporaneous declamation, and to aim at an elevated 
but not inflated style of speaking. 

To cultivate and inform the reason, all merely popu- 
lar trifles should be avoided, that the youth may de- 
vote himself to sound and wholesome learning, in 



258 ROMAN EDUCATORS : PLUTARCH 

which the commoner sorts should, as it were, be 
merely tasted in passing, and philosophy be made the 
absorbing study: For, " as it is well to travel and visit 
many cities, but to dwell in the best, so youth, vvliile 
studying many useful things, should lay chiefest stress 
on philosophy." 

Philosophy, with Plutarch, means the science of 
our relations to our fellow beings, to the state, to our 
own inner and belter selves, and to the Supreme God, 
and thus comprehends a wide course of elevating 
study. It is interesting to observe how analogous the 
philosophic ideas of this enlightened heathen, like 
those of his immediate predecessor Seneca, are to the 
teachings of Christ, which were then obscurely per- 
meating all parts of the Roman empire. 

Aside from the study of philosophy, and as a prepa- 
ration for that public activity which he considers an 
essential part of the complete man, Piutarch would 
have youth receive sufificient gymnastic exercise to 
assure health and beauty, and a proper training for 
war by martial exercises and by hunting; would have 
the writings of the best authors furnished to them 
" as needful tools" which they are to be taught to use 
aright; in the essay on Music, he expresses the familiar 
Greek idea of the great and pervasive importance of 
music in education. 

Like Quintilian he gives young men wise advice on 
their manner of hearing and reading. In both they 
should be sober and circumspect, heedful as well to 
reject any evil suggestions that may occur in what 
they hear and read, as to let slip nothing good and 
useful. They should remember, he says, in reading 



PHILOSOPHY, GYMNASTICS, KEADIKG 259 

some things, " that poetry like painting is an imitative 
art, a vocal painting as the other is a voiceless poem ; 
and hence, while they may admire the artistic pre- 
sentation of vile characters, they should by no means 
take them as models, carefully separating their admira- 
tion of the art of the poet or narrator from their moral 
estimate of the character presented." Plato, more 
judiciously, would have such things eliminated from 
what is presented to impressible youth; Plutarch, 
however, probably had in mind youth of more mature 
years, whom he would teach how to hear and read all 
things without harm. 

In the treatment of boys who are approaching 
maturity, lest the heat of passions should lead them 
into vices and excesses, Plutarch advises that they 
should be carefully managed rather than rigidly re- 
strained; that they should be quietly guarded from 
corrupting companions, and especially from toadies; 
that they should be familiarized with the career of 
great and self-controlled men; and, most of all, that 
their parents should be to them patterns of what they 
would wish their children to become. Finally, fathers 
are exhorted to let the remembrance of their own 
youth temper their management of their children, 
that it may make them a little blind to many things of 
minor consequences, and may guard them from hold- 
ing too close a rein on their well-grown sons. 

This is a pedagogic idea both wise and weighty; and, 
if it was much observed in ancient times in the man- 
agement of youth, I have never chanced to find it ex- 
pressed in any ancient author save Plutarch. Indeed, 
not a few well-meaning parents and teachers in our 



260 ROMAN" educators: PLUTARCH 

enlightened age find it difficult gradually to substitute 
the kindly influence of experienced equals in place of 
the rigid discipline of early years, and thus to make 
easier to youth approaching maturity the transition to 
that career of independent self-direction to which they 
must soon be remitted. 

With Plutarch, ends the list of authors in the Roman 
empire who expressed any noteworthy views upon edu- 
cation. In the centuries which succeeded his death, 
that progressive decline in morals and manners to 
which all contemporary authors bear witness could 
not fail to affect the attention paid to the education 
of youth. Not only did men cease to treat educa- 
tional questions or even to think of them ; but the en- 
couragements to the pursuit of a learned career grad- 
ually ceased to be sufficient to overcome the natural 
heedlessness of youth. Their attendance at the civil 
higher schools, so splendidly encouraged by many of 
the emperors, gradually declined; and this decline was 
doubtless hastened by the unwillingness of the rapidly 
multiplying Christians to send their children to pagan 
schools. 

The teachers vainly strove to attract students by the 
desperate expedient of making knowledge superficial 
by epitomes and abbreviated treatises. The decay of 
the schools became markedly apparent during the 4th 
and 5th centuries, and in the 6th they ceased to exist, 
having long before ceased to have any elevation of 
aim or freedom of thought. Their disappearance 
marks the close of the ancient order of things, and of 
the education inspired by its ideas. A new type of 



DECAY OF THE SCHOOLS 261 

education, based on an idea hitherto unconceived, was 
having its small and unnoticed beginnings, and was 
destined after ages of darkness and confusion, to open 
a new and brighter chapter in the history of both edu- 
cation and civilization. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION'S OF ANTIQUITY TO PEDAGOGY 

Having now completed our survey of the educational 
history of those ancient nations which, whether from 
their prominence in the general history of the world, 
or from the importance of their services to learning, 
or from their present relations to mankind, seemed 
needful to our purpose to be known; and omitting 
any mention of some whose history, while interesting, 
seemed in no wise indispensable to our view, let us, in 
accordance with what was said in the introductory 
chapter, briefly survey the entire course of ancient 
times, and see what contributions of permanent value 
it has made to pedagogy. 

I. First of all, antiquity has exhibited to us the 
workings and results of all save one of the conceivable 
forms and types of ideal aims that nations can strive 
to attain by the education of their young. 
t In China, we have seen the passive family type of 
national education, inspired by the idea of worship of 
ancestors and reverence for antiquity, by which, like 
flies in amber, the nation has been preserved unchanged 
and unprogressive for untold centuries, owing its 
preservation as much to its unwavering adherence to 
one fixed idea, as to its isolation, and to the great re- 
wards which a paternal government holds out to high 
attainments in the kind of learning which its ideal 

(262) 



VARIETY OF AIMS 263 

dictates; whilst the example of China may possibly 
suggest to nations in the future a mode of promoting 
learning as effectually as by schools supported by the 
state. 

The caste system of India with its underlying pan- 
theistic idea, and the monastic tendency of unalloyed 
Buddhism, both leading to quietism and to the extinc- 
tion of all manly endeavor, are of interest because of 
the unnumbered millions influenced by them. 

Of all the types of active national education, looking 
to some form of what Rosenkranz has called conquest^ 
the lowest doubtless was the Phoenician endeavor to 
conquer space in the restless enterprises of a tricky 
and conscienceless commerce; whilst the most respect- 
able by far was the Egyptian effort, inspired by the 
belief in immortality and in a righteous retribution 
after death, to pass as victors the limits of this mortal 
life by an upright career leading to embalment after 
death. The former, by the vices which it generated, 
led to the total destruction of the race, whose memory 
has been preserved chiefly by the great yet unintended 
services that it rendered in the diffusion of useful knowl- 
edge which it had anywhere gathered, or mayhap en- 
larged; the latter, though disfigured in the popular 
apprehension by many gross superstitions, raised a 
great nation, though a career of more than thirty cen- 
turies, to a high state of civilization, and left it finally 
to slow decay only when it had ceased to be a vital 
influence in the national life. 

The national education which looked only to exter- 
nal conquest, like that of Persia and Sparta, though in- 
spired in the former by an elevated religious idea, long 



264 CONTRIBUTION'S OF Ai'TIQUITY 

ago taught Aristotle the lesson which is valid for all 
ages, of the folly of those nations which, in training 
for war, lose sight of the ability to enjoy peace and 
leisure with dignity 

The Athenian ideal of the office of education, tO' 
form a perfect body tenanted by a soul completly 
developed for the duties of citizenship, was a noble 
one, and produced fruits which, though evanescent 
for national independence, were brilliant and endur- 
ing in literature and art. It needed for its perfection 
something which could be supplied only by the Chris- 
tian and modern conception of the independent worth 
and immortal destiny of the human personality. 

The Roman materialistic conception of education 
in its merely utilitarian aspects has left us in its re- 
sults a lesson of which every age experiences the need, 
of the greatest heights to which such an education can 
hope to attain, and of the base depth to which it is 
likely ultimately to tend. 

The Hebrew theocratic ideal of God as the supreme 
ruler of men, and of men as all equals in His sight, 
long perpetuated in that tenacious race by a corres- 
ponding education which was reinforced by striking 
symbols and recurring national festivals, has been 
largely merged in the more complete Humanitarian 
idea of Christianity, for which it was a preparative. 

The experimental test which the ancient world has 
furnished us of the various possible conceptions that 
can prompt and direct education, is of peculiar value 
to modern times. It should stimulate us to strive 
more intelligently for the realization of our higher 
ideal of the worth and perfectibility of a humanity 



CURKICULUM AXD METHODS 265 

which must make a complete and righteous use of this 
present life that it may thereby be fitted better for 
citizenship in the unseen world. 

II. The ancient world has bequeathed to modern 
pedagogy, in a more or less complete form, many of 
the branches of learning which it uses as means of 
education. Kot to speak of the important device of 
a phonic alphabet with all that it implies, it has demon- 
strated in Athens the efficacy in education of familiar- 
ity with a vernacular literature, a lesson that modern 
people have been slow to learn; has developed a sci- 
ence of grammar; has pushed to a good degree of 
completeness rhetoric, formal logic, and geometry; 
has developed the elementary operations with numbers, 
but save in the case of the Hindoos without devising 
any convenient system of notation; has emphasized 
the importance of music, and done something for its 
theory; has given us the beginning of geography and 
astronomy; and has left works of acknowledged value 
in medicine and jurisprudence. Besides this, two of 
its peoples have left to us a very rich and valuable lit- 
erature, which, during a large part of the last five 
centuries has been well-nigh the sole means for train- 
ing the young, which is still very widely used for tnis 
purpose, and which seems destined long to be so used 
by enlightened nations, though possibly in somewhat 
smaller measure. 

III. Furthermore, several ancient nations have trans- 
mitted to us valuable suggestions and exemplifications 
of methods of presenting subjects to immature minds. 
Both China and Egypt early invented the abacus to 
facilitate operations in numbers. Plato commends the 



^66 CONTRIBUTIONS OF ANTIQUITY 

Egyptian use of objective methods in certain subjects, 
and Quintilian strongly favors and illustrates the use 
of such methods in teaching reading and writing. 
The name and fame of Socrates are associated with 
an inductive and developing method of singular excel- 
lence. Aristotle's method of observing and interpret- 
ing nature preceded by many centuries Bacon's exposi- 
tion and enforcement of the inductive process. Quin- 
tilian's mode of presenting rhetoric in its practical 
aspects has never been excelled. And the teachings 
of Jesus, though linked with our deepest and most 
sacred associations, as those of the Savior of the 
world, might profitably be made a pedagogic study, as 
unequalled models for the illustration of the most pro- 
found truths by the most familiar facts. 

IV. Though Greece, beginning with the sophists and 
the philosophers, may claim to have given to the world 
the germinal idea of high training, and to have 
wrought it out in a university of long-continued cele- 
brity, yet we owe to Home, as one might expect, the 
only good ancient example of a consistent school sys- 
tem, advancing by successive stages from the elements 
to specialties. We have seen that this system was an 
outgrowth of popular needs rather than an organiza- 
tion devised of set purpose by the ruling powers ; and 
that it received its first governmental notice only when 
it had already taken somewhat definite form as a series 
of schools consisting of lower and higher elementary 
schools, schools of rhetoric, and schools of philosophy, 
of law, and possibly also of medicine. Hence its re- 
semblance to good modern systems is sufficiently inter- 
esting. We shall have occasion to see in our future 



system; physical a^-d esthetic culture 267 

studies that this resemblance is not a result of later 
imitation, since the modern evolution of school-sys- 
tems has been a growth from above downward. Hence 
we have here an example of the same universal needs 
of civilized societies, expressing themselves eventually 
in like modes of school organization, even in ages 
widely separated from each other. 

V. In this connection must be emphasized a remark 
that has before been made, that Athens has left us an 
example hitherto unequalled of what may be accom- 
plished in the physical and aesthetic training of an 
entire nation. One modern nation has already accom- 
plished much in general systematic physical culture, 
while others, whether wisely or not, have generally 
remitted it to the voluntary efforts of youth; but of 
the success of general aesthetic culture little can be 
said. Of the Athenian superiority in aesthetic culture, 
some portion was undoubtedly due to the special en- 
dowment of the people, but much more to the possi- 
bility of a far more exclusive preoccupation with mat- 
ters of taste than is permitted by the exigencies of our 
more complicated modern forms of life. Yet in any 
case, the value of the Athenian example is great, as 
showing what may be attained in aesthetic culture un- 
der favorable circumstances and by the use of proper 
■appliances ; and the influence of this example is likely 
to increase rather than to grow less, as advancing civil- 
ization brings with it the opportunity and the need of 
widening the circle of refinement. 

VI. Finally, let us take stock of the educational 
ideas expressed by the ancient world which, whether 
from their intrinsic worth though only individually 



268 CONTKIBUTIONS OE ANTIQUITY 

emphasized, or from a general consensus amongst theo- 
rists, are important to be elevated here into distinct 
view as valuable ancient contributions to pedagogic 
theory. 

1. Plato and Aristotle, probably influenced by Spar- 
tan example, agree that, contrary to Athenian practice^ 
education should be made an affair of the state, estab- 
lished and encouraged by the State, as essential to the 
well-being and perpetuity of the State; and Plato alsO' 
proposed that it should be made compulsory between 
the ages of ten and sixteen. In our days, when nations 
are but recently assuming these duties, it is well to re- 
member that these ancient philosophers distinctly 
affirmed the right and duty of the State to educate, 
and that one of them was the first to affirm distinctly 
that the education of the young should not be left 
dependent on the ignorance or neglect of parents, nor 
on the unreasoning caprice of youth. 

2. The idea that there is a progressive order of de- 
velopment to which all human beings conform in their 
advance from infancy to maturity, is distinctly affirmed 
by Aristotle, the order that he gives being first the 
body and the feeling, and next the intelligence; and 
he declares that the body and the feelings need the 
earliest training and habituation, the body for the 
sake of the soul as a whole, and the feelings for the 
sake of the intelligence. How important this study 
of the order of development of capabilities is becom- 
ing in the modern science of education, how ingenious 
are the attempts that are made to correlate it with the 
order of race development, and with what admirable- 
minuteness of research it is coming to be prosecuted 



ANCIENT EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 269 

in the study of the early years of childhood, every 
well-instructed educator knows. 

3. The ancient authors generally concur in empha- 
sizing the importance in early training of songs and 
narrations of heroic actions, and of familiarizing 
youth with the best stores of their country's litera- 
ture. This idea not merely was wise for ancient times, 
when the subjects for study were few, but is coming to 
be recognized as equally wise to-day when many sub- 
jects are clamoring for recognition in our schools; 
and in the most influential quarters, yre hear it de- 
clared that our vernacular literatures should be the 
last thing to be neglected in the education of the 
young, even if a diminished share of attention to 
ancient literature be thereby made imperative. 

4. There is a consensus Qrf.opini<=tfi : among the an- 
cients as regards the permanency of the impressions 
early made upon the minds of children, and the con- 
sequent importance of controlling such impressions. 
Hence they concur in urging extreme care in the 
choice of nurses, attendants, and companions, that 
the language as well as the morals of the young may 
grow into right forms, that no evil suggestions may 
contaminate their souls, and no evil actions become 
familiar to their experience. 

Hence also the emphasis that is laid, especially by 
Plato, on careful selection of the examples with which 
the charms of poetry enchant the young in heroic 
songs and poetic narrations. The vital importance of 
the impressions made on the plastic minds of the 
young has long sirjce become an educational common- 
place; but are we sure that greater care is exercised 



270 CONTEIBUTIONS OF ANTIQUITY 

to-day in controlling such impressions than in the- 
times of Plato and Quintilian ? If not, one of the- 
most valuable lessons that antiquity has emphasized 
has not yet been sufficiently heeded. 

5. The dignity and importance of the teacher's 
office was pretty 'generally conceded among the ancient 
nations. The Chinese and the Jews emphatically 
affirmed it. The Hindoos and the Egyptians tacitly 
assumed it by committing its duties the one to their 
highest caste, the other to the sacred order of the 
priesthood. Amongst the Greeks, though the lower 
teachers were lightly esteemed, the higher and more 
learned were held in honor; Plato deemed the direction 
of education the highest of the chief offices of the state, 
and thought with Socrates that its services were toa 
precious to be repaid by money; and the wisest philoso- 
phers undertook the instruction of young men. 

In Rome, not less than in Greece, many of the in- 
ferior teachers were held in a contempt, which they 
seem'to have deserved by their character and the mean- 
ness of their learning, as we may judge by the account, 
that Plutarch gives of them; but the really able and 
worthy teachers were respected, were often richly 
paid, and received special honors and privileges from 
the state. No one has surpassed Quintilian in his 
high estimate of the qualifications of the teacher and 
of the nobility of his work, while Seneca draws an at- 
tractive picture of the relations that should exist be- 
tween teachers and taught. It appears therefore that 
among the ancient culture peoples a just estimate of 
teachers and teaching prevailed, and that where seem- 
ing exceptions occur, the reason for them may be found. 



ANCIENT EDUCATIONAL IDEAS 271 

in the character and attainments of teachers them- 
selves. 

6. It is interesting to observe that in China and 
Egypt, as well as in Athens and Eome, it was tacitly 
and perhaps unconsciously assumed that the higher 
education needed chief encouragement, and deserved 
to be fostered even where general education had no 
direct recognition. Thus in China and Egypt the high 
places in the state were open only to the learned; in 
Greece, the greatest philosophers devoted their talents 
and their fortunes to founding and perpetuating the 
higher learning; and in Rome, the most enlightened 
emperors erected buildings, granted salaries, and con- 
ferred special privileges, to encourage liberal culture. 
Nor does it seem that through this exclusive encour- 
agement to higher learning, elementary instruction de- 
teriorated, but rather that it was improved. Thus by 
the example of the ancient world, the assumption 
seems to be warranted that higher education deserves 
more fostering care from public sources than is usually 
accordei to it, and that elementary education must 
look for its improvement to an impulse proceeding 
from higher seats of learning. 

7. The unanimity of opinion among the ancient 
theorists on the subject of school discipline, is some- 
thing remarkable. In ages during which the rudest 
punishments were prevalent in the schools as well as in 
the state, theorists concur in denounciijg corporal in- 
flictions as slavish in character, debasing in tendency, 
and usually futile for purposes of reformation. In- 
deed, an English writer aptly says that the unanimity 
of writers in condemning flogging has been parallelled 



272 CON^TRIBUTIONS OF ANTIQUITY 

only by the persistency of the schoolmasters in con- 
tinuing to use it. The practice of teachers, however, 
in this respect is undergoing a slow amelioration, and 
the signs are not few that the milder discipline which 
the early theorists so generally advocated will ulti- 
mately prevail in schools. Let us also recall the judi- 
cious suggestion which Plutarch makes, that parents 
and teachers should gradually relax the discipline exer- 
cised over well-grown jouth, that they may be pre- 
pared for the self-direction of maturity. 

8. Finally, the idea which in our days is more com- 
monly urged as a theory than generally observed in 
the practice of the schools, that all tasks set for the 
young should be carefully adapted to their powers of 
apprehension at the stage of advancement which they 
have reached, was not unknown in ancient times. Thus 
Seneca advises that the burdens laid on youths should 
be fitted to their powers, and that no greater ones 
should ever be imposed than they can easily bear; 
Quintilian says that skilful teachers will not overtask 
the weakness of their pupils, but will adapt their tasks 
to their abilities; and Plutarch, in order that youth 
may taste the pleasures of success, recommends that 
their powers be not put to too severe tests. 

These then are what seem to me the most signifi- 
cant contributions made by the ancient world to the 
theory and practice of education. They are obviously 
neither few nor of inferior worth. 



INDEX 

A star shows that portrait is given; q. indicates 
quotation. 

abacus 38, 219, 265 

academy 133 

active national culture 57 

system 73 

adaptation to capacity 272 

administration 188,193 

advantages of public education 250 

^schines 113, 254 

oration of 110 

aesthetics 68, 108, 109, 140, 267 

age for education 39 

honored 103 

of pupils 115 

agriculture 192, 236, 237 

Agrippa 212 

Ahriman 74, 75 

aim of education 31, 256 

of Chinese education 40 

aims and spirit 18 

Alexander 60, 69, 79, 176, 248 

Alexandria 28, 70, 139, 229 

scholars of 206 

Almagest 213 

alphabet 38, 265 

(273) 



274 HISTORY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

alphabetical method 123, 21 (> 

all-around training 68 

Ammon Ka 59 

Anabasis 75 

Anaximander 142 

ancesters 34, 36, 262 

ancient customs 44 

Ancus Martins 193^ 

Antoninus Pius 221 

Antony 238 

Appi us Claudi us , 198 

apprehensi on 14(> 

Arabians 36, 51 

Arabic notation 38, 125, 210, 265 

Aramaic 92 

Archias 238 

Archimedes 211*^ 

architecture G6, 111 

argumentation 132 

aristocracy 98, 111, 138, 144, 150' 

Ari stophanes 113 

Aristotle... 115, 119*, 120, 132, 133, Id-^^, 141, 160, 

165, 176*-186, 206, 248, 255, 264, 266, 268 

q 106, 107, 122 

arithmetic. 37, 51, 113, 

125, 126, 172, 204, 210, 218, 224, 265 

arithmetical notation 125 

Arnold, Thomas 209 

art education 166 

association 198 

Assyrians 60 

astrology 67 



INDEX 275 

astronomy 51, 67, 70, 78, 82, 90, 92, 109, 125, 

126, 148, 162, 166, 172, 204, 205, 213, 265 

Athenaeum 223 

Athenian education..96, 97, 120, 129, 264, 265, 267, 268 

philosophers 28,37 

Athens 104, 107-186, 193, 202, 229 

and Sparta compared 95-98, 128, 268 

athletics 214 

Attica 96 

Augustus 208, 213, 215, 235 

Aurelius Victor 208 

authors 254 

Babylon 91, 92 

Bacon, Francis 185, 266 

ball playing 102, 214 

l)arbari sms 206 

Bell, Andrew 52* 

Berytus 139, 232 

blind obedience 128 

boarding school 144 

bodily cleanliness 76, 101 

grace 117 

perfection • 181 

body, feelings, intelligence 268 

Book of the Dead 58, 61 

books 215 

boys, capacity of 246 

education of 74 

boxing 118 

Brahmins 51 

Breviarum Historiae Eomanae 208 

brevity 105 



276 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

Buddhism 36, 46, 54, 65 

Buddhists 187 

Ceesar 235 

Cambyses 60 

Camillus ' 198 

Carnac 59 

Cassian schools 232 

caste education 50 

system , ...63- 

Catiline 23& 

Catothe Censor 196, 198, 202, 237 

q 199, 24^ 

character, factors of 178 

of man 256- 

study 248 

China 24, 31-45, 

47, 57, 65, 187, 223, 262, 265, 270, 271 

Chinese pedagogy 42 

Christ 129 

as a teacher 94, 129, 258, 266 

Christian education 22, 29, 87 

Christianity 63, 264 

Cicero 150, 217, 227, 234, 237*-240, 252, 25a 

q 195 

citizenship 97 

civil ization 23, 25 

class distinctions 193 

cleanliness 76, 101 

clubs 138, 228 

college 226^ 

colors 67 

comedies 182 



ii^DEX 277 

Comenius 45 

comic 171 

companionship 236 

competition 227, 242 

completely developed manhood 202 

composition 219, 251 

compulsory education 92, 103, 109, 114, 169, 268 

conduct taught 39 

conformity to customs fundamental 44 

Confucian classics 46 

Confucius 34, 37, 38, 41, 42*, 47, 48 

conquest 263 

Constantinople 232 

Copernicus 213 

corporal punishment 219, 271 

corps 136 

correlation 268 

courage 100, 102 

courses 137 

Court of the Dead 61 

crime and pauperism 27 

criticism 185 

Crotona 143 

crypteia 105 

culture 82, 108, 189, 229 

curriculum 128, 137, 265 

cyclic poets Ill, 123 

Cyropoedia 75 

Cyrus 75, 77, 79, 187 

dancing 37, 103, 118, 126, 173 

Daniel 75, 91 

Darius 79, 187 



278 HISTORY OF AIs"CIEiq^T EDUCATION 

decimal notation 51,54 

degrees 137 

democracy 109 

Demosthenes 237*, 253, 254 

demotic writing 64 

deportment 78 

deposition 138 

Dentsch, Emanuel 88 

q 91, 93 

devel oping thought 128 

development, order of 268 

dexterity 100 

dialectics... 130, 132, 166, 167, 204, 205, 210, 226, 227 
dialogues, see Socrates 

diet of children 64, 101, 236 

Digests 233 

Dionysius Thrax 206 

discipline 68, 69, 103, 113, 138, 144, 219, 242, 271 

Dittes, q 53, 160 

dogmatics 52 

domestic education 197 

Domitian 253 

Donatus 234 

Dositheos 216, 218, 225 

drawing 68 

drunkenness 99 

dynamic period 191, 201-215, 237 

early impressions 269 

East Indians 36 

Ebers, Georg 79* 

education and labor 27 

defined 169 



IKDEX 279 

education effects of 40, 257 

embodiment of ideals 17-30 

end of 241 

educational periods 190 

effeminacy 241 

egoism 188, 189 

Egypt 52, 57-72, 82, 97, 125, 136, 142, 143, 

151, 174, 187, 263, 265, 266, 271 

Egyptian method 172 

Egyptians 65, 212, 213, 223, 270 

elementary education 222 

Elijah 93 

Elisha 93 

Elius Donatus 206 

eloquence 196 

eminent Eomans 234-261 

endowment 134 

endurance 100 

engineering 66 

Ephebi 115 

Epicurus 133, 134* 

Epitome Eerum Romanarum 208 

epitomes 260 

Erasmus ; 256 

ethics 92, 130, 132, 205 

Ethi opians 60 

etiquette 37, 39 

Etruscans 194 

etymology 206 

Euclid 211* 

Eutropius 208, 209, 234 

Evans, Arthur J., q 82 



280 HISTORY OF Aiq-CIENT EDUCATION" 

examinations 47 

example 198, 203, 243 

expression 135 

Ezekiel 81 

factors of character 178 

Falerian schoolmaster 198 

family education 88 

ties 106, 192 

fees 149 

festivals 89 

Pichte 24 

filial duty 128 

love 34 

reverence 40 

finance 78 

fines 220 

Florus 208, 209, 234 

food for boys 76 

of children 64, 101, 236 

foreign languages 122 

formal examinations 127 

fortitude 100 

Francke 147 

fraternities 136, 138 

freedom of study 138 

teaching. . 138 

Froebel 247* 

Gaius^ Institutes of 232 

vralen 214, 230* 234 

games 95 

geography 68, 70, 109, 211, 265 



IN'DEX 281 

geometry 37, 67, 113, 125, 126, 148, 162, 166, 

172, 214, 205, 210, 211, 236, 265 

Germans 24 

Gibbon, q 136, 253 

girls, education of 100, 102, 114, 170, 236 

learn Greek 93 

training of 39 

glass-making 82 

Glaucon 158 

God, idea of 86 

Golden Age of Egypt 59 

Gorgias 133 

government 144 

gown 137 

grades 224, 251 

grammar 51, 92, 124, 204, 205, 206, 236, 265 

grammarians 112, 251 

grammaticus 222, 225 

grammatists 112 

great men 26 

Greece... 28, 70, 180, 187, 206, 207, 233, 255, 270, 271 

and Rome 266 

Greek 84, 93, 207, 240 

culture 191, 201, 202, 238 

' education 95-186 

Griffis, q 46 

Grote 133 

q 75, 80, 108, 131, 142, 150, 160 

gymnastic art 119 

Guizot, q 221, 224 

gymnasia 117, 133, 226 



282 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

gymnastics 37, 68, 95, 102, 108, 110, 

112, 117, 120, 126, 148, 170, 181, 183, 196, 25B 

gymnasts 117 

guarding children 181 

habits 147, 203: 

Hadrian 136, 223 

hardening boys 239 

harmony 148 

of the spheres 148- 

hazing 137 

health 148 

Hebrews 28, 70, 86-94, 97, 270 

education 22, 86-94, 264 

law of 62 

tenacity of 92 

Helots 98, 99, 106, 192 

Heracleids 138 

Herbart 45 

q 23 

Hercules 209 

Hermodamus 142 

Herodotus 60, 73, 172 

q 75 

Hesiod 123, 171 

poems of Ill 

hierogy phic forms 65^ 

higher education 271 

at Athens 130-140 

Hindoos 50, 187, 265, 270 

Hipparchus 213 

Hi ram 84 

histories 127 



INDEX 283 

history 51, 92, 172, 207, 208, 226, 239 

home education 116 

Homer 103, 104, 111, 113, 123, 124, 171 

q 160 

Homeric poems 121 

Horace 217 

human personality 264 

humanists 254 

humanitarian 33, 96, 264 

ideal 22, 129 

hunting 102 

Hyginus, 0. Julius 213, 234 

ideality 189 

ideas, force of 21 

imitation 183, 239 

immortality of the soul 61, 144 

impressions upon the young 174 

incentives to education , 65 

India 50-56, 143, 263 

individual judgment developed 128 

responsibility 50 

individuality 96, 106, 264 

inductive process 266 

industrial education 65, 81, 115 

inflection 206 

ingratitude 76 

initiations 137 

institutes , 233 

of oratory 245 

Instruction of Ptah-hotep 58, 66 

intellec t 186 

intellectual education 120, 122 



284 HISTORY OF AN^CIENT EDUCATIOIS" 

i nternational law 193 

introduetion 17 

Ionic music 1 28> 

ironic 161 

Isocrates 13o 

Israelites 58,64 

ivory letters 216 

Japan 44, 46-49 

Japanese 24 

Jerusalem 92 

Jesuits 150 

Jesus as a teacher 94, 129, 258, 266 

Jovianus 208 

judgment 128- 

jumping 102 

jurisprudence 92, 188, 222, 226, 231, 265 

justice 78, 188, 239 

sen se of 77 

Justinian 139, 221, 233 

Kant, q ..23 

labor and education 27 

honored 110 

Labyrinth 58 

Lacedemonians 105, 151 

Lancaster, Joseph 52^ 

land measurements 236 

languages 1 27 

Lao-tse 4 1 , 45 

Latin race 187 

laughable 172 

law 51, 68, 78, 92, 219, 226, 231, 237, 239 

laws of Plato .. 165 



IKDEX 285 

lax .discipline 220 

learners 91 

learning by doing 203 

lectures 144 

Leibnitz, q 21 

liberal arts 237 

liberator 224 

libraries 69, 136, 215, 223, 235 

library of Alexandria 139 

Liddell, q 201 

li terary culture 1 04, 1 7 1 

instruction 103 

literator 222 

literature 112, 123, 126, 135, 265, 269 

Livy 253 

q :.198 

Locke 120, 236, 248 

q 163 

logic, 132, 205, 210, 265 

Lucian 214, 216, 225 

q 120 

lycee 226 

lyceum 133, 134, 185 

Lycurgus 99, 100, 103 

lyre 171 

Luxor 59 

magi 78 

Mahaffy, q 115, 139 

maieutic 154, 161 

man of affairs 226 

Manilius 214 

manners 104, 145 



286 HISTORY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

manners, decline of 229 

marriages regulated 181 

Marseilles 1 39 

master-builders 91 

mathematics 51, 92, 127, 139, 148, 151, 210, 227 

maxims 147 

medicine 51, 67, 70, 

78, 92, Vo . 219, 222, 226, 229, 237, 265 

Memorabilia 154, 158 

memorizing 123, 216, 219 

memory 146, 239 

training of 252 

Mencius 44 

Meneplitha 59 

mental development 151 

Mesopotamia 82, 143 

metallurgy 82 

metaphysics .151, 205 

Metapontum 150 

methods 40 

of instruction 215, 265 

Hebrew 93 

military 189, 191, 196, 203 

character 98 

education 102, 103, 106, 115, 118 

Milton, q 56, 188 

mining 82 

mnemonics 239, 252 

moderation, possibility, and decency 185 

modern languages 92 

modesty .^ 76, 78 

monasticism 56 



IN^DEX 287 

Mongolian race 44 

monitorial system 52, 54 

monotheism 86 

monks 55, 70 

monogamy 64 

Montaigne 256* 

monuments Ill 

moral character 249 

developm.ent 227 

education 68, 76, 101, 104, 119, 121, 

129, 147, 171, 239, 240, 259, 269 

morality 228 

morals 39, 144 

code of 62 

Mosaic code 86 

Moses 57, 59, 68, 70, 88, 143 

mothers 197 

multiplicity of subjects 126 

Murray, David 48* 

music...37, 68, 69, 102, 110, 112, 113, 114, 117, 121, 126, 

128, 148, 168, 169, 170 171, 172, 174 , 183, 204, 265 

scope of 108, 258 

musical training 169 

m.ythology 208 

myths ..., 209 

national education 49, 98 

idea 34 

natural history 92 

nature, custom, reason 178 

reason, use 257 

Nero 241 

Nerva 223 



288 HISTORY OF ANCIEJS^T EDUCATION 

new education 201 

Nicomaeus 176 

Niebuhr, q 194 

Nile 67 

nirvana 55 

notation 210 

novices 145 

novitiate 145 

Numa 193 

numbers 166 

numeral systems 38, 125, 210 

obedience 100, 192 

observation 185, 203, 204 

oldest book in the world 66 

open-air teaching 52,113 

Ophir 81 

oratory 160, 219, 226, 239 

order of development 186 

organization 188, 193, 222-233 

of education 140, 266 

schools 202 

orient 187 

oriental ed ucation 3 1-50 

peoples 22, 213 

Ormuzd 74 

Osiris , 61 

orthography 206 

outdoor instruction 77 

overcrowding 127 

Ovid 214 

paedotribus 112, 117 

pain, endurance of 104 



IN^DEX 289 

painting 68, 183, 259 

Palaestra 117 

pantheism 50, 53 

papyrus 65, 67, 69, 125 

paradise of children 49 

parental honor 90 

parents, duties of 23, 92, 259 

reverence for 34 

Parrhasius 155 

passive education 55 

Passover 89 

Patinian 232 

patrici ans 192 

patriotism 192, 269 

pauperism and crime ^ 27 

pedagogic contributions from antiquity 262-272 

pedagogue 112 

Peloponnesus 98 

penmanship 125, 218 

pentathlon 118 

penetralia 146 

Pericles 96, 111, 126 

Perioeci 98, 192 

Peri patetics 134 

Persia 73-80, 143,263 

Persian education 97 

Pharaoh 59 

Philip 249 

philosophic clubs 138 

freedom ^ 135 

philosophy 51, 130, 132, 135, 139, 185, 201, 

203, 222, 226, 227, 228, 229, 236, 240 



290 HISTORY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

philosophy the absorbing study 258 

Phoenicia 80-85, 263 

physical capability 1 00 

culture 78 

feebleness 32 

training 75, 116, 118, 140, 170, 191, 196, 214 

vigor 100, 106 

physics 109, 151, 157, 162, 205 

phy siogonomy 145 

physiology 67 

pictorial study 208 

pictures 124 

Pisistratus Ill 

Piraeus 136 

Plato 60, 64, 65, 70, 115, 118, 121, 132, 

133, 134*, 141, 149, 153, 157, 158, 160, 165*- 
175, 176, 178, 179, 182, 185, 197, 268, 269, 270 

q 79, 107, 

114, 116, 117, 118, 122, 124, 125, 169, 265, 268 

Platonists 227 

plays 116 

pi ay thi ngs 64 

plebs 192 

PI ei stonax, q 1 05 

Pliny 212 

Plutarch Ill, 141, 199, 234, 255-260, 272 

and Plato 259 

and Quintilian 258 

and Seneca 258 

q 9D, 101, 105, 137, 196, 197, 233, 272 

poetry 51, 68, 259, 269 

poli tical duties 203 



IN^DEX 291 

politics 130, 132, 135, 176, 185, 205 

Pompey 235 

Pomponius Mela : 212 

Pontns 136 

practical education 180,188 

ethics 61 

Praise of Learning 66 

priestly education 57-72 

priests as teachers 65 

primitive education 19 

printing, art of 36, 69 

Priscian 207 

private education 110, 112, 128, 135, 249 

schools 39 

probation . .V. 145 

Proculian schools 232 

progressive education 179 

Proverbs of Solomon 90 

Ptah-hotep, Instruction of 58, 66 

Ptolemies 63, 69 

Ptolemy 212, 213, 234 

public education 128, 249 

public professorships. 135 

publicity 109 

Punic faith 81 

purity 148 

pyramids 61 

Pyrrhic dances 103 

Pythagoras 70, 141-152, 142* 213 

Pythagoreans 151 

quadrivium 204, 214, 225, 237 

Quintilian 217, 223, 226, 234, 244-254, 256, 270 



292 HISTORY OF AN^CIEN-T EDUCATIOI^^ 

Quintilian, q 124, 

...204, 205, 206, 207, 211, 215, 218, 220, 266, 272 

Rabanus Maurus 207 

Rameses 59 

reading 37, 38, 51, 

....88, 103, 114, 120, 123, 126, 171, 183, 216, 224 

book 113 

how taught 38 

manner of 253 

records of the past 66, 71 

reformatory education 145 

religion 143, 190, 203, 228 

reh'gious ceremonies 109 

' el ement 97 

festivals 69 

instruction 102, 121, 124, 129, 147 

sentiment 68 

worship 118 

Renouf, q 62, 70 

Republic of Plato 165, 166 

resignation 53 

responses 233 

retribution 68 

after death 61, 144 

rhetoric 130, 132, 135, 201, 

...204, 206, 210, 219, 222, 226, 227, 236, 251, 265 

rhetoricians 251 

Rodes 139 

rhythm 184, 205 

riding 214 

R Oman education 187-261 

Rome 28, 29, 139, 140, 264, 270, 271 



IKDEX 293 

Rome and Greece 266 

and Sparta 191-194 

Romulus 193 

Rosenkranz 22 

q 55, 263 

rules 225 

running 102, 214 

Samuel 93 

Saturnalia 224 

Scaevola, Q. Mucius 238 

Schmidt, Karl, q 23, 36, 45, 47, 66, 

...106, 110, 127, 138, 142, 149, 151, 194, 223, 227 

scholasticism 29, 96, 210 

school among the Hebrews 88 

and family 64 

code 110 

of Pythagoras 141 

schoolmaster, see teacher. 

school -room 113 

schools of philosophy 135, 229 

of the prophets 94 

science 132, 143, 163 

of education 18 

sciences 70, 127, 166, 172 

scientific education 148 

scribes 91 

sculpture 66,68 

self abnegation 50 

activity 147 

assertion 50 

control 76,162 

denial , 54 



294 HISTORY OF AN"CIEN"T EDUCATION 

self poise 104 

preservation 23 

rule 241 

Semitic races 58 

Seneca 228, 234, 240*-244, 249, 270, 272 

q 204, 227 

sense impressions 239 

serenity 241 

serfs 99 

Servius Tullius 193 

Shuking 36 

Sidon 81, 142 

Simonides 239 

simpl icity 76 

slave teachers 197 

slaves 96, 110, 112, 125 

smattering of subjects 131 

Smith, William 117 

q 142 

Socrates. 115, 132, 141, 149, 153*-164, 172, 179, 186, 270 

method of 155, 160, 266 

Socratic institutions 130 

solecism 206 

Solomon 34, 80,;84 

Solon 109, 111, 114, 123, 192 

laws of 110 

q 113 

songs 95, 102, 121, 126, 171, 173, 195, 269 

sophists 115, 131, 132, 136, 161, 181 

teaching of 132 

sound judgment 100 



IKDEX 295 

Sparta 95-106, 

107, 109, 112, 127, 151, 180, 191, 192, 193 

and Athens 95-98, 128, 268 

and Persia 263 

and Pythagoras 151 

and Kome 191-194 

Spartans 118, 187 

speech and reason 257 

Spencer, Herbert, q 19 

Spensippus 134 

Spiess 209 

spirituality 189 

sports 170, 173, 236 

state education 73, 189, 222, 263, 268 

statesman 226 

Stoics 134 

Strabo 208, 209, 212, 234 

students societies 136 

subject of education 40 

swimming 102, 118, 214 

stylus 218 

syllabic method 216 

syntax 206 

sy ssitia 151 

system of schools 222, 266 

tablets 124 

Talmud 87 

q 93 

Tao 41 

Tarshish 81 

Tarsus 139 

taste 97, 103 



296 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

teacher and pupil 243 

estimation of 40, 53, 86, 221, 270 

teachers 112 

as slaves 197, 221 

pay of 51, 161, 221 

social position 221, 270 

teaching, importance of 248 

technical education 127 

temperance ." 76, 100 

Terence 217 

Thales 70, 142*, 213 

theatres 109 

Thebes 59 

theft 101 

Themistocles 158 

theocratic education 22, 86, 264 

th eol ogy 68 

Thibet 55, 56 

thinking 147 

Thotmes 59 

Thucydides 172 

q Ill 

Thirlwall, q 142, 150 

Thrax, Dionysius 124 

Tiberius 231 

ti mocracy 193 

tools 127 

tranquil soul 181 

trigonometry 67 

trivium 204, 214, 225 

truth 78 

truthfulness 104 



297 

INDEX '^^^ 

Tschu-li -^^ 

Tusculnm ]ll 

. , 136 

tutors 

Tyre ^^ 

TTi • 23•^ 

^^P^^^ 114 

United States ^^* 

universal education 1^^» ^"^^ 

... 29 

universities 

university of Athens 149,266 

education ^^^ 

system ^^^ 

teaching -'""' 

utilitarian 162, 188, 189, 190, 202, 203, 229, 240 

Varro 234-236,237 

204 

^ 217 

vernacular 

literature "^65, 269 

Verlet ''^^ 

208, 219 

!5."^.-: ..198 

Virsrinia 

virtue ^*^'^'^''f. 

von Raumer, q 

waxed tablets 

weakening ' 

whipping "• 

Williams, Dr., q ^^' ^^ 

Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach 90 

women, education of 48, 96, 118, 128, 168, 169 

■ position of 

writing.. .37, 38,51, 88, 103, 114, 120, 126, 171, 195, 224 
in the sand ^ 



298 HISTORY OF ANCIENT EDUCATION 

Xeonophon 73, 75, 153, 157 

q 76, 77, 156, 160, 162 

Xerxes 79 

Zeller, q 142, 143 

Zeno 133, 134* 

Zoroaster 74* 



THE SCHO OL 5 ULLETIK PUBLIC A TIONH.- 




History of Modem Education. 

The History of Modern Education. An account of Educational Opinion 
and Practice from tlie Revival of Learn^ 
ins to the Present Decade. By Samuel 
G. Williams, Ph.D., Professor of the 
Science and Art of Teaching in Cornell 
University. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 499. With 
3T Portraits. $1.50. 

This is a revised and enlarged edition 
of what was upon its first appearance 
altogether the fullest and most com- 
plete history of modern education now 
available. It is the only adequate prep- 
aration for examinations, and a neces- 
sary part of every teacher's working 
library. 

The titles of the chapters will give some idea of its comprehensiveness. 
Those in italics appear for the first time in this revised edition. 

Introductory. Valuable contributions to i)edagogy from ancient days. I. 
Preliminaries of modern education. II. The Renaissance, and some inter- 
esting phases of education in the 16th century. III. Educational opinions 
•of the 16th century. IV. Distinguished teachers of the 16th century, 
JMelanchthon, Sturm, Trotzendorf, Neander, Ascham, Mulcasier, the Jesu- 
its. V. Some characteristics of education in the 17th century. VI. Princi- 
ples of the educational reformers. VII. The ITth century reformers. VIII. 
Temale education and Fenelon. IX. The Oratory of Jesus. Beginnings of 
American education. X. Characteristics of education in the 18th century. 
m. Important educational treatises of the 18th century: Rollin, Rousseau, 
Xant. XII. Basedow and the Philanthropinic experiment. XIII. Pesta- 
lozzi and his work. XIV. General review of education in the 18th century, 
"XV. Educational characteristics of the 19th century. XVI. Extension of 
-.•popular education. ILYYl. Froebel and the kindergarten. XVIII. Professional 
■training of teachers, and school supervision. XIX. Manual and industrial 
training. XX. Improvements in methods of instruction. XXI. Discussion of 
relative value of studies. 

There are also added an Analytic Appendix, for review ; the Syllabus 
on the History of Education prepared by the Department of Public Instruc- 
tion for the training classes of the State of New York, with references by 
page to this volume ; and an Index of 13 double column pages, much fuller 
than in the first edition, 

)The Critic calls it, " sensible in its views, and correct and clear in style." 
The American Journal of Education says: "It is not too much to say that 
for all ordinary purposes Prof. Williams's book is in itself a much more val- 
oable pedagogical library than could be formed with it omitted." 

C. W. BARDEEX, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 



OPINIONS OF Williams's history 

It is the fullest, most complete, and most satisfactory work we have on the 
»VLbject.—Uducational Courant, Sept., 1892, 

It presents the salient features, is interesting and yalnskhle. —Sunday 
School Journal, March, 1893. 

Believing it to he the best book of its kind, I shall use it in my classes.— 
Prof. W. M. 5to^r,Normal Department, Salem College, W. Va., Nov. 21,1892. 

This book is better adapted to our use than any other we have found.— 
Principal C. C. Bounds, New Hampshire State Normal School, Oct. 12, 1892. 

The volume is one of decided value, and is a miniature cyclopaedia of 
historical facts dating from the Eenaissance. — New York World, Aug. 21, 1892, 

Sensible in its views, and correct and clear in style, Prof. Williams's book 
Is well worthy of a place in educational literature.— The Critic, Sept. 10, 1892« 

A book worthy to take its place in the teacher's library alongside of 
Quick, Compayre, and Gill. — Western School Jmirnal, Feb., 1893. 

It is not too much to say that for all ordinary purposes Prof. Williams's 
book is in itself a much more valuable pedagogical library than could be 
formed with it ovaWX^^.— American Journal of Education, Sept., 1892. 

Throughout the book the author shows good sense in his judgment of 
men and methods; and, what is no small merit in the present age, he is- 
entirely free from hobbies. — Science, Aug. 26, 1892. 

The title of this book can scarcely suggest the rich and varied interest 
of the materials which it includes. It sums up for us the story of educa- 
tional methods and systems in all countries, from the middle ages down ta 
the present VAii.—Bevie^o of Reviews, Oct., 1892. 

I have received a copy of Williams's History of Modern Education, and 
having read three chapters I see it must be added to our library. Please 
send us two copies more .—Principal W. E. Wilson, R. I. State Normal 
School, Nov. 15, 1892. 

The author's style is clear and readable, his criticisms without color,. 
• * and the impression in our mind after perusal is that the author is not 
only one who ^Tjows, but one whose thoughts and conclusions are worthy 
of respect.— Popular Educator, Nov., 1892. 

It is a wonderful book for conciseness — a veritable multum in parvo, and 
still the narrative style is so constantly maintained that it reads more like 
a story than an encyclopaedia. It is both in one.— Principal 0. D. Eobinson, 
Albany High School, March 15, 1893. 

The outlook over the subject is broad, the views in many instances fresh, 
and the interpretation penetrating. The work is especially valuable as 
being at once comprehensive and compact, covering the whole ground, 
with each movement or phase of progress given in its due proportion.— 
Evangelist, Oct. 20, 1892. 

His method of treating the subject is eminently happy. The salient points 
of the history of education in that period are clearly indicated, and the as- 
cending curve of progress is sketched through them. Dr. WJlliame's style 
is delightful. Every teacher will be at onf *» T)leaged and instructed by a 
perusal of the \yo6)s..— Public Opinion. 



OPINIONS OF WILLIAMS'S HISTORY 

He has shown that he is a natural historian, for his omissions are those 
speculations and discussions which are too often found in other histories 
of education, which add nothing to the value of the history, and only serve 
topuff out the matter. * * * With such histories as Quick's and Com- 
payre's, Williams's will have an equal rajik,— Education, Oct., 1892. 

No teacher should long remain in ignorance of the growth of education 
and of the names and efforts of those who have through the years been 
shaping our system of schools. The author has been successful, we think, 
in selecting from the mass of matter that which is truly representative. 
The book is interesting in its substance and attractive in its makeup. We 
quote from it in another portion of the Moderator that our readers may 
form some idea of the style.— J/ijcA. Moderator, Sept. 22, 1892. 

The author has attempted to construct a clear, truthful, interesting 
narrative, within moderate compass. To make a wise selection from the 
vast amount of materials at his disposal, and to arrange it in the best form, 
was no easy matter. It required a broad knowledge and comprehensive 
grasp of the whole subject, together with sound judgment and good taste 
in selecting and arranging his materials. In our judgment the author has 
succeeded admirably in his undertaking. We commend the book most 
heartily.— Prof. S. J. Kirkivood, in The Post Graduate, Jan., 1893. 

Dr. Williams has chosen to write the history of education in a style inter- 
esting alike to the general reader and to the teacher. Hastily running 
through the story of the early attempts in educational affairs he gives the 
greater part of his work to recounting what has taken place within this 
century. The author takes full cognizance of all the influences which have 
been exerted through the ages upon the systems of education, and with a 
clear comprehension of the present status of education demonstrates the 
results which have come from the focussing of different streams of light.— 
Teachers' World, Feb., 1893. 

Dr. Williams has been throughout a close, discriminating student of edu- 
cational systems, both in their present form, and in their vicissitudes dur- 
ing the past few centuries. As a result of these two forces, he now presents 
the students of education with an exceedingly valuable contribution towards 
the history of teaching and teachers. Dr. Williams has been very success- 
ful in securing a proper balance between the different men and movements 
Few subjects give a better opportunity for the believers in this prophet or 
that to extol him as the one great leader. Just now it has been Comenius, 
while Pestalozzi, Frcebel, and Rousseau have never lacked over-ardent 
friends. All of these receive fair treatment in these lectures : treatment 
which may not entirely meet the ideas of this student or that, yet which 
always ensures a clear understanding of the man and his work, and the 
opportunity for honest, well-founded personal opinions. It is a book which 
must be on the shelxies of every student of education.— New England Journal of 
Ed'n. Oct. 20. 1892. 



THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATTOXS 

Helps in the History of Education 

1. An Outline of the History of Educational Theories in England. By 
H. T. Mark. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 139. $1.25. 

This work, published in 1899, gives the latest views, with advantage of 
the most recent investigations. Besides treating of Erasmus, Ascham, Mul- 
caster, Comenius, Locke, Milton, Bacon, Stow, Lancaster, Herbert Spencer, 
and Sir Joshua Fitch, it points out the influence of men less widely known, 
like Barclay, Sir Thomas Elyot, Colet, Wotton, Hoole, William Webster^ 
Lily, Wolsey, Cooke, Petty, and others. There are special chapters on 
physical, intellectual, technical, and moral education, with appendices on 
teaching of manners, on Sturm, and on Locke. 

2. Lectures on the History of Education in Prussia and England. By 
James Donaldson. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 18.5. $1.00. 

3. A Short History of Education. By Oscar Browning, edited by 
Chancellor W. H. Payne. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 93, with 39 portraits and 9 other 
illustrations. 50 cts. 

This is a reprint of the article on education in the Encyclopa?dia Bri- 
tannica, with notes on Comenius and Bibliography. 

4. Sketches from the History of Education. By W. N. Hailmann. 
Paper, 8vo, pp. 39. 20 cts. 

This treats particularly of Luther, Bacon, Pestalozzi, Girard, Diester- 
weg, and Froebel. 

5. History of the Philosophy of Pedagogics. By Prof. C. W. Ben- 
nett. Leatherette, 16mo, pp. 43. 50 cts. 

6. Elementary Greek Educatioii. By Fred H. Lane. Leatherette, 
16mo, pp. 85. 50 cts. 

7. Port-Royal Education. Extracts from its leading authors, edited. 
With historical introduction, by Felix Cadet, French Inspector General of 
Public Instruction. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 400, with many portraits. $1.50. 

This volume makes available to the English reader the principal peda- 
gogical writings of Saint-Cyran, Arnauld, Lancelot, Nicole, De Saci, and 
other well-known authors of this famous institution, more influential in the 
history of education than any other single organization. 

8. History of the Burgh Schools of Scotland. By James Grant. Cloth, 
8vo, pp. 571. ,$3.00. These were the original free schools of the world. 

9. The History of the High School at Edinburgh. By William Ste- 
ven. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 610. $2.00. 

10. History of the Schools of Syracuse, N. Y. By Edward Smith. Cloth, 
8vo, gilt top, pp. 347. With 85 portraits and 30 pictures of buildings. $3.00. 

11. Teachers' Institutes, Past and Present. By James M. Milne. Paper, 
8vo, pp. 22. 25 cts. 

12. History of Educational Journalism in the State of Neiv York. By 
C. W. Bardeen. Paper, 8vo, pp. 45. 40 cts. 

13. Educational Publications in Italy. By Piero Barbera. Paper,. 
8vo, pp. 14. 15 cts. Written for the Columbian Exposition. 



■THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS- 



Mark's History of Educational Tlieories 

" After an introductory view of the middle ages and the renaissance in 
England, the chapters treat of the theories of physical, intellectual, practi- 
cal, technical, and moral education. This leads under intellectual edu- 
cation to treating the growth of the application of psychology, the theory 
of interest, the theory of language teaching, and the theorj' of education 
orient himself in the field and guide himself to more extensive readings."— 
values. It is an outline treatment which is attempted, by which one may 
Wis. Journal of Ed'n. 

" An appendix contains some interesting and valuable collateral matters. 
The author's object, as he announces at the opening of his introductory 
chapter, is ' to restate the English educational ideals which were for the first 
time distinctly announced in the seventeenth century, and to trace them to 
their historical origin in the pre-Eenaissance era, the twelfth, thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries.' The book appears to be an able and scholarly 
production."— SeraZcZ, Syracuse, N. Y. 

"A very interesting book for students of education is found in a volume 
of 140 pages, entitled An Outline of the History of Educational Theories in 
England, by Mr. H. T. Mark of Owens College, Manchester. The book con- 
tains so much condensed information of a very attractive and valuable sort 
that we hope to make it the subject of a fuller notice before long."— J'Ae 
Commercial Advertiser, New York. 

"Very instructive, very entertaining and very suggestive is the little 
work of Kev. W. T. Mark under the above title— a story of the theories of 
education in a country wbere such a thing as a system of education is still 
unknown. It is instructive to us, who are mostly English in our methods 
as in our language, to know that from the days of Alfred to the days of 
board schools education in England has been merely chaos, the dense Eng- 
lish intellect stumbling and blundering on from one mistake to another 
without definite plan or object or course and getting along somehow. It is 
really astonishing to have such a conviction forced on us, but there is no 
escaping it. On only one point has England had a thorough and consistent 
principle, and that is that if the master will only beat a pupil hard 
enough and often enough, and begin soon enough, he has done his full duty; 
and if the result is unsatisfactory the blame must fall on Providence. For 
the rest, those who were fond of learning would study anyhow; the others 
could go to Oxford or Cambridge and qualify themselves to misgovern the 
country. Now with county government granted to the cities, the board 
schools have come, and England must try what we call public educa- 
tion. With the example of our experience to guide her, it is to be hoped 
that she will avoid some of our difficulties and not accept the theory that 
the public-school system was intended to provide salaries for the female 
relatives of politicians and profits for text-book publishers and centractors,'* 
—New York World. 

Cloth. 16m.o, pp. 151. ^l.S5 



■THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS- 



Cadet's Port-Eoyal Education 

" Port-Royal Education, a sketch of its history, with extracts from its 
leading authors, edited by Felix Cadet, gives a little over a quarter of its 
pages to the history of the movement and sketches of the leading men con- 
nected with it ; the rest of the volume is devoted to translations from their 
works. The history is discriminating, critical, and valuable, and is illus- 
trated and further developed by the translations. In fact, one is brought 
by this book into the life and society of the Port-Royalists, enters into 
their aims and plans, and catches the spirit which animated them. This 
makes It a valuable book for the student of education who cares for more 
than the mere theories, for the human life and hopes which gave rise to 
them. There is no movement in the history of education which more de- 
mands this sort of study than that of the Port-Royalists, none more pa- 
thetic, and none offering so many brilliant as well as devoted meu and 
women whom it is a delight to know intimately. We commend this volume 
to the attention of our readers."— TFis. Journal of Education. 

" For those who are interested In the history of educational move- 
ments, as well as in the personal biographies of men who have played a 
conspicuous part in the religious discussions of France and the Nether- 
lands, the book is well worth reading and ownx^ig.''^— Sunday School Times. 

" The book gives a full and interesting account of the men and women 
who founded and conducted the Port-Royal schools and of their educa- 
tional ideas and methods. These include Saint-Cyran, Lancelot, Pascal, 
Nicole, Guyot, Arnauld, Coustel and others. About two-thirds of the book 
is filled with extracts from the writings of these authors on educational 
matters. It is a work that all engaged in the teaching of youth can read 
with interest and profit."— >S'yracMSg Evening Herald. 

" They taught children to write little stories and letters and even bits 
of poems in French. This was done by the class instead of requiring each 
member to work alone. An epithet was suggested by one, criticised by an- 
other, improved upon by a third. In each case a reason was required. The 
girls did not share these blessings. They were taught by nuns in the older 
way. They learned sewing, housekeeping, and singing. They learned to 
' preserve rigid silence ' and, apparently, to pray without ceasing. When 
they were very good they were allowed to copy something. One hour a 
week was devotod to arithmetic. The school boasts that most of their play 
time was devoted to work. The older girls were allowed the favor of tell- 
ing one of their faults aloud, once a day. Perhaps these fragments give an 
unfair view of the book as a whole. It deserves a place in the library of 
pedagogy, both for the historical view it presents and for the suggestions, 
not yet out of date, which may be added to our methods." — The School 
Weekly, Chicago. 

Clotli, pp. 406, illustrated, $1.50. 



School Bulletin Publications 



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(4) 



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